A rose-colored homage to the power of food to build community in a Manhattan melting pot.
This evocative tour of New York City's Lower East Side celebrates the neighborhood’s immigrant cultures.
A tan-skinned Jewish child, old enough for an independent outing, walks through the neighborhood toward the many varied food markets. Along the way, he connects with friends of Puerto Rican, Chinese, and Indian descent, and they gather food from each of their cultures. The wistful text juxtaposes the street-level specifics of urban living—a kosher grocery store, a bodega cat, a roast duck hanging in a window—with philosophical musings about the meaning of home. The digital illustrations mirror this effect, as foregrounded exchanges in the Manhattan markets give way to nostalgic backgrounds depicting the children’s families’ homelands. The postures of the children and their neighbors convey a welcoming warmth, inviting readers—and possibly newcomers—into the markets’ small domains. A quirk of the illustrated eyes, however, makes the lighter-skinned characters look overwhelmingly exhausted, a distracting idiosyncrasy that works against the deliberate positivity of the text. Backmatter provides brief context for each of the Lower East Side cultures depicted in the book, and maps on the endpapers hint at further foods and cultures around the corner. Though the text acknowledges changes over time, it doesn’t mention gentrification, which threatens the robustness of all these neighborhood microcosms.
A rose-colored homage to the power of food to build community in a Manhattan melting pot. (author’s and illustrator’s notes) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781250834171
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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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