Not for beginners, but older children may use this as a springboard for their own shape hunts.
Howells give familiar shapes both personalities and back stories in her authorial debut.
Everyone at Shapeston Elementary is excited about the auditions for the upcoming play, especially the shapes. They’ve had lots of practice playing roles and doing jobs already. Each of the six—Triangle, Square, Circle, Rectangle, Rhombus (aka “Diamond to her friends”), and Oval—gets his or her own double-page spread to serve as an introduction, cleverly pointing out to kids the many places they can find shapes in the everyday world. “Maybe you saw [Triangle] strutting her stuff on that sailboat in the bay.” “[Diamond] dazzles in patterns—check out your uncle’s argyle socks.” The right-hand pages of these intros present montages that show many of them in action: Circle as clock face, Rectangle as tablet screen, etc. Some of the real-world applications are clearer than others (the frosted green Diamond-shaped shortbread feels entirely arbitrary, for instance), and for Square’s help with math, children may need the picture to make the connection. In the end, everyone gets a part, and the shapes play integral roles in the scenery. Howells’ digital artwork is bright and colorful and clearly shows the many places shapes can be found. However, her text is far too long for any audience that is just learning about shapes, and the play is a rather weak device.
Not for beginners, but older children may use this as a springboard for their own shape hunts. (Math picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-55453-743-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings.
The Crayons head back to class in this latest series entry.
Daywalt’s expository text lays out the basics as various Crayons wave goodbye to the beach, choose a first-day outfit, greet old friends, and make new ones. As in previous outings, the perennially droll illustrations and hand-lettered Crayon-speak drive the humor. The ever wrapperless Peach, opining, “What am I going to wear?” surveys three options: top hat and tails, a chef’s toque and apron, and a Santa suit. New friends Chunky Toddler Crayon (who’s missing a bite-sized bit of their blue point) and Husky Toddler Crayon speculate excitedly on their common last name: “I wonder if we’re related!” White Crayon, all but disappearing against the page’s copious white space, sits cross-legged reading a copy of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. And Yellow and Orange, notable for their previous existential argument about the color of the sun, find agreement in science class: Jupiter, clearly, is yellow AND orange. Everybody’s excited about art class—“Even if they make a mess. Actually…ESPECIALLY if they make a mess!” Here, a spread of crayoned doodles of butterflies, hearts, and stars is followed by one with fulsome scribbles. Fans of previous outings will spot cameos from Glow in the Dark and yellow-caped Esteban (the Crayon formerly known as Pea Green). (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780593621110
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
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