Reflects everyday Black boy joy with a mathematical twist.
Tyson may be the smallest and youngest of five brothers, but his math skills make him a giant at saving the day when the family pet goes missing.
When playing basketball with his older brothers, Tyson struggles to keep up; his steps are smaller, and he quickly realizes that he has to take more of them to compensate. Nicknamed Li’l Man, Tyson enjoys playing with and taking care of the family’s pet gerbil, Swish, who is significantly smaller than him. When Swish escapes from his cage, his brothers take the lead on finding the little animal, while Tyson cleans and prepares the cage for his eventual return. When his brothers are unable to locate Swish, Tyson must consider, “If I were Swish, where would I go?” Turns out Swish is under the bed, just out of reach. Tyson uses the tubes from Swish’s cage to lure the gerbil out, realizing that if he uses smaller tubes, he’ll need more of them to bridge the distance, and he ultimately rescues Swish. Brown-Wood has crafted an accessible and relatable narrative in which knowledge of proportional thinking helps solve a real-world problem. Magloire Williams’ fun, funky, colorful digital images of a loving Black family of boys complement the story well. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Reflects everyday Black boy joy with a mathematical twist. (author’s note, note on math, suggested activities) (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-62354-164-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.
After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.
Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593622360
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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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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