Conveys thought-provoking ideas in a gentle, easily comprehensible manner.
What a difference a day can make!
Life’s an awesome adventure, filled with highs and lows—sometimes all in the same day. This delightful book explores the idea of life’s shifting sands. Through simple, bouncy verses and charming, colorful illustrations depicting a variety of scenarios, readers learn that some days will be filled with triumphs, friendship, and excitement, while others might deliver disappointment, hurt, sadness, fear, loneliness, and self-doubt. In other words, life isn’t static. The author and the illustrator present relatable ideas and visuals that will help children easily grasp the message. Happy days are described as yellow; sad ones are blue. The cheerful rhymes and bright, lively images—a mix of full-page art and vignettes—work together well, using the concept of opposites to help kids compare the inevitable ups and downs of daily life: “Some days are fast! Others seem slow.” “Some days are ‘Yes.’ Others all ‘No!’” Children will feel reassured by the book’s auspicious premise that no matter what’s occurred today, a brand-new tomorrow is inevitably on the horizon. Characters are racially diverse; one light-skinned child is depicted using a wheelchair. After reading, kids may want to volunteer their own ways to describe yellow and blue days.
Conveys thought-provoking ideas in a gentle, easily comprehensible manner. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781534112940
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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
Making friends isn’t always this easy and convenient.
How do you make a new friend when an old one moves away?
Buddy (from Sorry, Grown-Ups, You Can’t Go to School, 2019, etc.) is feeling lonely. His best friend just moved across town. To make matters worse, there is a field trip coming up, and Buddy needs a bus partner. His sister, Lady, has some helpful advice for making a new pal: “You just need to find something you have in common.” Buddy loves the game Robo Chargers and karate. Surely there is someone else who does, too! Unfortunately, there isn’t. However, when a new student arrives (one day later) and asks everyone to call her Sunny instead of Alison, Buddy gets excited. No one uses his given name, either; they just call him Buddy. He secretly whispers his “real, official name” to Sunny at lunch—an indication that a true friendship is being formed. The rest of the story plods merrily along, all pieces falling exactly into place (she even likes Robo Chargers!), accompanied by Bowers’ digital art, a mix of spot art and full-bleed illustrations. Friendship-building can be an emotionally charged event in a child’s life—young readers will certainly see themselves in Buddy’s plight—but, alas, there is not much storytelling magic to be found. Buddy and his family are White, Sunny and Mr. Teacher are Black, and Buddy’s other classmates are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Making friends isn’t always this easy and convenient. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-30709-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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