Thoughtful and empathetic.
A dog challenges a young boy’s need for tidiness.
Nick is super, super neat, and has been all his life. If something is messy, he just has to fix it. Of course, there are some things Nick can’t change, such as other people’s untidy clothes, odd smells, or loud noises. Often, Nick prefers to be on his own, where he can keep things just so, until he starts to feel lonely. One day, Nick’s parents bring home a surprise—a huge, floppy-eared, bushy-tailed, covered-in-leaves-and-slobber, reddish-brown dog! After the initial shock, Nick sets out to “fix it” by giving the loving dog a vigorous bath and hair trim. The two of them go to sleep all neat and tidy, but the next morning, the pooch is somehow a mess again. Soon, the chaos gets to be too much for Nick, but he discovers that “there’s nothing neater than love.” Nick appears to have an anxiety disorder, though that's never explicitly mentioned. His story could have come across as saccharine, but his happy ending feels genuinely earned. The dog is obviously enamored with Nick from the start, and Nick eventually reciprocates. Otis imparts a gentle lesson that letting go of some control can be good. Some of the mixed-media illustrations depict neat, carefully composed scenes, while others explode with raggedy swirls; whether readers prefer order or mayhem, they’ll enjoy this tale. Nick and his parents are tan-skinned, while background human characters are racially diverse.
Thoughtful and empathetic. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9780593530658
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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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