Celebrating kids, art, and supportive communities, this gem deserves a wide audience.
Award-winning illustrator Taylor honors artistic expression and community support for street art in his authorial debut.
Narrator Sam moves cross-country with Mom and Dad, trading their beloved, pulsing city for a small, quiet town. Sam feels like an outsider “from another planet” at school, “ready to take the first spacecraft home.” A downtown encounter with gorgeous graffiti on a wall that spells out “EXPAND!!!” wows Sam, evoking the vibrancy of the city. But when Sam and older cousin Lincoln return, they find the wall painted over. Lincoln knows that street art hides all over town, though: “tags in the alley, stickers on street signs, stencils on the corner,” and more. “You just have to know where to look!” The pair then discover something extraordinary: an abandoned factory, alive with diverse graffiti artists transforming its interior walls. Sam, approaching a busy mother-daughter team, learns that the town has sanctioned the venue for rehabilitation as a community art space. Invited, Sam dons a respirator and gets to work. Final pages reveal the protagonist’s giant self-portrait as an astronaut against the word HOME, extending the theme of artistic and personal expansion. Taylor’s vibrant, explosive illustrations vividly capture street art’s dynamism in a palette with purple and gold highlights. He encodes messages of positivity into the graffiti—“XPLORE,” “HOPE”—as well as names and personal references. Sam, Lincoln, and Sam’s parents are Black; the mother and daughter Sam meets are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Celebrating kids, art, and supportive communities, this gem deserves a wide audience. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-62672-294-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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