Sam advocates for his friend, May, by allowing her to play on his soccer team after she’s been told she cannot join in.
The game continues and everyone takes a participatory role. “Lin kicks the ball. // They run. / They pass. // We block. But we do not get the ball. // Lin kicks again. / She gets it in. ‘Score!’ they yell.” Short declarative sentences, just one or two per page, with a controlled vocabulary build to provide suspense and excitement from each team’s perspective. The carefully crafted first-person text repeats a core list of words in a variety of sentences that move the action along, allowing more-proficient new readers to feel accomplished. Sam and May eventually get the ball back to succeed in a winning score. “I need to score one more. / It is up to me. May yells, ‘Kick it in, Sam!’ // But I pass the ball to May. / I will let her try. // May kicks. // May scores! // We win!” Simple, finally outlined cartoon characters include a multiracial cast—Sam presents white while May has brown skin and straight, black hair—in varying soccer poses that serve as good picture cues for the action described. The modest story is poignant in its underlying message of inclusion and supportive friendship.
Teamwork and camaraderie are strong factors in any soccer game. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4514-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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A lad finds a penguin on his doorstep and resolutely sets out to return it in this briefly told import.
Eventually, he ends up rowing it all the way back to Antarctica, braving waves and storms, filling in the time by telling it stories. But then, feeling lonely after he drops his silent charge off, he belatedly realizes that it was probably lonely too, and turns back to find it. Seeing Jeffers’s small, distant figures in wide, simply brushed land- and sea-scapes, young viewers will probably cotton to the penguin’s feelings before the boy himself does—but all’s well that ends well, and the reunited companions are last seen adrift together in the wide blue sea.
Readers who (inexplicably) find David Lawrence’s Pickle and Penguin (2004) just too weird may settle in more comfortably with this—slightly—less offbeat friendship tale. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-24503-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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A monohued tally of positive character traits.
Purple is a “magic color,” affirm the authors (both actors, though Hart’s name recognition is nowhere near the level of Bell’s), and “purple people” are the sort who ask questions, laugh wholeheartedly, work hard, freely voice feelings and opinions, help those who might “lose” their own voices in the face of unkindness, and, in sum, can “JUST BE (the real) YOU.” Unlike the obsessive protagonist of Victoria Kann’s Pinkalicious franchise, being a purple person has “nothing to do with what you look like”—a point that Wiseman underscores with scenes of exuberantly posed cartoon figures (including versions of the authors) in casual North American attire but sporting a wide range of ages, skin hues, and body types. A crowded playground at the close (no social distancing here) displays all this wholesome behavior in action. Plenty of purple highlights, plus a plethora of broad smiles and wide-open mouths, crank up the visual energy—and if the earnest overall tone doesn’t snag the attention of young audiences, a grossly literal view of the young narrator and a grandparent “snot-out-our-nose laughing” should do the trick. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.4-by-20.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 22.2% of actual size.)
The buoyant uplift seems a bit pre-packaged but spot-on nonetheless. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-12196-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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