A gentle story with clear messaging about kindness, empathy, and seeing beyond superficial differences.
A little boy whose skin changes color is bullied for being different in Tabb’s illustrated children’s book.
Sam is a third grader with an unusual condition: Like a chameleon, his skin turns different colors to match his surroundings. Sam has a few friends, but other kids mock and bully him. A girl laughs at a purple-skinned Sam when he asks if she wants to play. A boy calls him “weird” and “pushe[s] Sam’s bike over.” On his way home, Sam turns green. While he’s greeted appreciatively by his adoring little sister and supportive parents (“We love you just the way you are”), Sam is still sad, wishing he looked like “everyone else.” By not over-dramatizing Sam’s plight, Tabb strikes the right tone to invite readers’ empathy, then deftly turns things around by giving Sam agency over how he is perceived, having him dream that he’s saved from bullies by a bunch of chameleons. The heroic, color-shifting reptiles spark Sam’s fascination with the real thing. He learns about them (Tabb includes interesting chameleon facts), is given his own pet chameleon, and takes his pet to school. There, Sam’s informed presentation sparks his peers’ interest, and they see that Sam is a pretty cool kid, no matter what color he is. The chameleon theme is woven visually throughout the book; Tabb alerts her readers to spot the five chameleons that can be found on certain pages as part of the illustrations by Albert. These are done in an especially engaging style featuring expressive cartoonish characters in different skin tones (a couple of them are in wheelchairs), simple line drawings, and an assured balance of color and white space. The after-material includes questions for kids to ponder and a link to a website with activities.
A gentle story with clear messaging about kindness, empathy, and seeing beyond superficial differences.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2024
ISBN: 9798350969092
Page Count: 36
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader!
Fun with friends makes for a great day.
Norbit, a salmon-colored worm with a pink kerchief, joyfully greets the day and everyone he encounters. “Hello, friends! It’s time for fun with the sun! Let’s play!” He and his menagerie of forest pals—including the sun, who grows limbs and descends from the sky—exuberantly engage in various forms of physical activity such as jumping, going down a slide, spinning around, and watching the clouds go by. Young readers will readily relate, as these are games that most children are familiar with. As day turns to night, Norbit says farewell to Sun and welcomes Moon with an invitation to continue the fun. Watkins has created a vivid world of movement and merriment. Her illustrations feature bright bursts of color that match the energy of the text, with most sentences ending in an exclamation point. The author/illustrator incorporates many elements that make for an ideal early-reading experience (despite the use of a contraction or two): art free from clutter, text consisting of words with only one or two syllables, and repetition and recurring bits, such as a continued game of hide-and-seek with Sun. Inspired by never-before-seen sketches from the Dr. Seuss Collection archives at the University of California San Diego, this is the first title for Seuss Studios, a new imprint for original stories from “emerging authors and illustrators” who “honor Seuss’s hallmark spirit of creativity and imagination.”
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader! (author's note) (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593646212
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Seuss Studios
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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