A fun story of friendship and acceptance that treads familiar territory.
A guinea pig who is a surprise birthday gift learns that it’s OK to be an oddball.
The Surprise is sleepy and dressed in a martial arts uniform. She wakes when Kit, the Black child to whom she was gifted, has left for school, and the other pets surround her. Paul, a bird; Dora, a cat; and Bob, a pug, don’t know what she is or what she does, and they conclude that “If you’re not a cat or a dog or a bird, you’re an oddball.” After being ostracized, the Surprise tries to make herself more like the other pets, but the flying device she creates carries her out the window. Blown by a gust of wind, she finds herself at the window of another oddball, who shares macaroons and a game of cards until it is time for the Surprise to return to Kit. When Kit hugs her and introduces her to the other pets by name, the others stop giving her a hard time and welcome her into the fold. Smith and Laird’s picture-book debut is adorable and sweet, if surprisingly ordinary; their exploration of the eternal theme of fitting in offers amusing details but no unique angle. Fox’s illustrations, in a soft palette, add personality, relying on compositions that emphasize both action and quieter moments of connection. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A fun story of friendship and acceptance that treads familiar territory. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-52597-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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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