This urban fable encourages readers to claim their space but may provoke more questions than answers.
Who needs shadows anyway?
Luci certainly doesn’t. But soon people start noticing that even in the brightest of sunlight, Luci is missing hers. From the time she is a baby, she is hyperaware that people are judging her. As a toddler, she learns to walk in the shadows of others. However, one day at school she stops huddling in the gloom and ventures into the light. The cruel taunts of classmates drive her first to tears and then to rebellion. Finding herself no longer anchored to the ground by shadows of people or things, she soars through the city and experiences the liberating power of just being herself, taking on vibrant color that contrasts with the black-and-white world around her. Delacre’s sparse text reads more as a stream of consciousness than a story. Punctuated by a smattering of Spanish, Luci’s thoughts range from disjointed musings to powerful observations: “Mean shadows pointed. / Mean shadows laughed. / Mean shadows stared / their icy stares.” The illustrations also meander in quality, from the strikingly textured shadows to an inconsistently portrayed Luci. Peculiarly, an image of Luci crawling is partnered with the line, “But I grew up.” Luci’s apparent age continues to weirdly fluctuate—when she’s walking with her mother after the flying adventure, she appears younger than when she’s soaring. She then appears as a preteen in the final panel. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
This urban fable encourages readers to claim their space but may provoke more questions than answers. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-984812-88-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers.
A winning wheel of cheddar with braggadocio to match narrates a tale of comeuppance and redemption.
From humble beginnings among kitchen curds living “quiet lives of pasteurization,” the Big Cheese longs to be the best and builds success and renown based on proven skills and dependable results: “I stuck to the things I was good at.” When newcomer Wedge moves to the village of Curds-on-Whey, the Cheese’s star status wobbles and falls. Turns out that quiet, modest Wedge is also multitalented. At the annual Cheese-cathlon, Wedge bests six-time winner Cheese in every event, from the footrace and chess to hat making and bread buttering. A disappointed Cheese throws a full-blown tantrum before arriving at a moment of truth: Self-calming, conscious breathing permits deep relief that losing—even badly—does not result in disaster. A debrief with Wedge “that wasn’t all about me” leads to further realizations: Losing builds empathy for others; obsession with winning obscures “the joy of participating.” The chastened cheddar learns to reserve bragging for lifting up friends, because anyone can be the Big Cheese. More didactic and less pun-rich than previous entries in the Food Group series, this outing nevertheless couples a cheerful refrain with pithy life lessons that hit home. Oswald’s detailed, comical illustrations continue to provide laughs, including a spot with Cheese onstage doing a “CHED” talk.
From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063329508
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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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