A gloriously giggly tale glued together by a glob of very gooey gum.
A series of silly and mostly unsuccessful solutions for removing a blob of bubble gum.
Conversational rhyme, cascading action, and dramatic page turns create a story of early-morning, get-ready-for-school chaos. Gum-wrapper endpaper illustrations collaged under a bubble gum–pink wash set the tone for escalating silliness that begins before the title page with illustrations of a kid falling asleep after blowing a bubble and ends a page turn after the last words. A narrator, never seen but ever helpful (“Okay: / We went on some websites. / And all of them swear…”) and increasingly harried (“All right, let’s get serious — / this is the plan: / We blow the gum out with a powerful fan. / Plus every few seconds we’ll pop a balloon”), will try anything to get the gum out: grass, a cat, noodles and bacon, a vacuum cleaner, a steaming pot of chili, and more. Full-page headshot illustrations capture the child’s reactions, including priceless eye rolls, fearful bug-eyes, and glassy-eyed resignation, until an unexpected solution stops the chaos in its tracks. The kid presents White, as do many depicted family members, but one, an older sibling perhaps, has brown skin. The punchline—that it’s school-picture day—arrives just in time to generate a fresh gale of giggles as the protagonist sits sans gum but with everything else still entangled in that hair.
A gloriously giggly tale glued together by a glob of very gooey gum. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-8154-7
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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
From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers.
A winning wheel of cheddar with braggadocio to match narrates a tale of comeuppance and redemption.
From humble beginnings among kitchen curds living “quiet lives of pasteurization,” the Big Cheese longs to be the best and builds success and renown based on proven skills and dependable results: “I stuck to the things I was good at.” When newcomer Wedge moves to the village of Curds-on-Whey, the Cheese’s star status wobbles and falls. Turns out that quiet, modest Wedge is also multitalented. At the annual Cheese-cathlon, Wedge bests six-time winner Cheese in every event, from the footrace and chess to hat making and bread buttering. A disappointed Cheese throws a full-blown tantrum before arriving at a moment of truth: Self-calming, conscious breathing permits deep relief that losing—even badly—does not result in disaster. A debrief with Wedge “that wasn’t all about me” leads to further realizations: Losing builds empathy for others; obsession with winning obscures “the joy of participating.” The chastened cheddar learns to reserve bragging for lifting up friends, because anyone can be the Big Cheese. More didactic and less pun-rich than previous entries in the Food Group series, this outing nevertheless couples a cheerful refrain with pithy life lessons that hit home. Oswald’s detailed, comical illustrations continue to provide laughs, including a spot with Cheese onstage doing a “CHED” talk.
From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063329508
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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