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BIG BAD BUBBLE

The book’s potential utility in helping children cope with irrational fears is undermined by its absence of a credible story.

La La Land is populated by scaredy-cat monsters.

According to the narrator, when bubbles pop, they reappear in La La Land, home of some remarkably uninspired-looking (and -named) monsters. Monsters who are terrified of bubbles. A bubble-gum bubble once popped on the face of a monster named Mogo, and his subsequent fright is the rather weak basis for the collective monster bubblephobia. As Mogo attempts to spread comical misinformation about bubbles, the narrator (who speaks to both the characters and readers) instructs readers to ignore him. A pace-crushing spread of haphazard facts about La La Land comes across as filler to bring this very slight effort up to 32 pages. In the end, the narrator convinces the monsters to face their fears using their fearsome physical qualities. Salmieri does his best, placing hairy, toothy monsters against a black background; a monster called Wumpus looks a little like Sendak’s horned Wild Thing. The final illustration, with the three smaller monsters astride their larger friend fleeing in apparent terror from a monarch butterfly, may be the funniest part of this book.

The book’s potential utility in helping children cope with irrational fears is undermined by its absence of a credible story. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: May 6, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-544-04549-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Clarion Books

Review Posted Online: March 11, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

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

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BUDDY'S NEW BUDDY

From the Growing With Buddy series , Vol. 3

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

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