Those who willingly follow aural and visual enticements to other realms will be enchanted.
This is not your mother’s abecedary. There is a letter on every spread, and Princess Anna does present an ambrosia apple, but that is where the similarity stops.
The framing story is slim: An unambitious, avian prince is awaiting the right partner. He gazes out the window while his parents round up contenders. As the exotic birds parade by, each with a gift and her own spread, there is the sensation of entering the slightly surreal world of Peter Sis’ Conference of the Birds (2011)—if that journey were being rewound—or of Venice during Carnival. The birds wear floor-length costumes, and Princess Victoria actually comes from the Veneto, bearing a vizard (the beaked plague-doctor’s mask). The mysterious objects and animals, the deep colors and subtle textures, and the luminous auras surrounding the princesses interact to conjure a magical atmosphere. The narrative’s construction is more about alliteration than letter recognition, with three to five sentences per creature producing a variety of delicious sounds, unfamiliar words and idiosyncratic images. Princess Elmira “is extravagant, empathetic, and enormously emancipated.” She brings “eleven elegant elephants.” The prince is weary just anticipating this process; children who prefer more action, plot or character development may tire as well.
Those who willingly follow aural and visual enticements to other realms will be enchanted. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4113-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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