Fun rhymes with a hint of nostalgia.
Howell introduces original verses and rhymes that will engage young readers.
This collection of simple, playful poems covers a multitude of traditional, familiar topics. All tackle subjects that will appeal to young children, with titles such as “Making a Fort” and “Chasing Leaves.” Many lines encourage movement, such as “Bend your elbow. Tap your knee” in “Follow the Leader”; in “Yoga Moves” a young speaker says, “I stretch around and twist. I bend to touch my toes.” Howell’s verses are easy to read with simple, singsong rhythm and cadence. The majority are brief and light in tone, but a few are longer, such as “Snowstorm,” “Family Treasures,” and “Grandpa’s Day” (“Grampa, hum my favorite song / While I bounce and bob along”), and the reflections they spark add needed variation. The rhymes, in elementary vocabulary, feel natural, and the use of the Dyslexie typeface will allow those with reading disorders to better access the text. The short lines mingle with the charming, friendly, and vibrant illustrations, and the page design achieves balance with small chunks of text appearing in varying locations on each page. The organization of the poems feels haphazard, but readers will be happy to meander through the book.
Fun rhymes with a hint of nostalgia.Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64372-054-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: MacLaren-Cochrane Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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