Rachel Kim knows what success feels like. She’s been in a famous K-pop group, Girls Forever, for several years, establishing herself as one of its stars. Rachel has traveled the world and given everything to the group but is intrigued when approached with a few independent job opportunities. With the entertainment group’s blessing, Rachel embarks publically into the fashion design of purses while also privately dating a very connected young gentleman. But not all group members are happy with Rachel’s success. Girl drama mixed with suppressed passion and a little bit of paparazzi scandal propels this semi-autobiographical story. Rachel will learn that sometimes being on a new path is scary, with the unknown around the corner, but you have to try something new to get new results. Anyone who follows K-Pop will enjoy this Bright romp.
My Pet Feet
My Pet Feet provides readers with a glimpse of what the world would be like without the letter R. A young girl awakens to greet her pet ferret, Doodles, who has now been turned into her pet ‘feet’ since the letter R is missing from the alphabet displayed on her wall. She sets out to find out what happened to the missing letter but the town is in R-less chaos. She has to escape many silly R-less obstacles such as a policewoman on a galloping hose, a fiend instead of her friend Lucas, and a flock of cows (crows with cow bodies). She climbs a cane (crane) to escape the pandemonium when Doodles runs away to help lead the way to the R thieves.
I highly recommend this book for young elementary students. The play on words provides an effortless opportunity to build letter knowledge and phonological awareness with young readers. Young readers will also enjoy searching the colorful illustrations to find all of the R-less mayhem like the motorcycle driving on ties rather than tires.
A Grand Day
A Grand Day is a celebration of the special relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. Children, parents and grandparents gather to enjoy one another’s company while sharing a wide variety of activities. Families are seen enjoying breakfast on the porch, gardening, making sidewalk chalk art, and visiting the park to play, have picnics, and read. The text is brief and rhyme helps detail the excitement the children feel while sharing in each adventure.
I’ve never seen anything like illustrator Samantha Cotterill’s amazing layered, three-dimensional illustrations. She is celebrated for her diorama-style illustrations which are quite unique and really fun to look at. I also appreciated the diversity of family members and one child uses a wheelchair. I recommend this book to help highlight the bond between family, “Family ties so strong and true / Part of me / is part of you.”
Star Fishing
I love the illustrations! They are sweet and fanciful, and very suited to the bedtime story this is. It tells of a child who cannot sleep, but finds a dangling star that invites him to the moon to play with a little rabbit who can’t sleep either. They keep wondering if they are the only ones who can’t sleep, but every time they cast their star line down, they real in another animal who can’t sleep, until the whole gang discovers that the stars aren’t sleepy either. After a fun night of playing among the stars they worry about little rabbit being alone again when they leave, so they create constellations to remind her of her friends, crab, big bear, little bear, fox, and rabbit before being sent off to sleep once more. I confess, as an adult reader, I was a bit disappointed in the simplicity of the plot, I wanted more to happen, but I don’t think the young children who are the target audience will care. They enjoy a story more through their hearts than their heads.
Bravo, Bucket Head!
The Lester-Munsinger duo have teamed up again to share the story of shy Mousetta, who is so shy she walks backward and hides within her parents’ clothes or wherever else she can, feeling mousey next to her cool, gorgeous, awesome field mates. The only way she can work up the courage to attend a workshop that promises to make her feel more outgoing is to wear a bucket on her head. At the workshop she is joined by Lampshade Head, Wastebasket Head, and Blankey Head, but before instruction can begin an emergency alarm warns of foxes in the area, and even the instructor takes cover, hiding in a garbage bin. Realizing that someone better do something if they’re not to end up as fox food, Mousetta tries three times to get enough oomph into her voice to get the others to join hands and charge the foxes.
Scared by the aliens with strange heads and backwards feet, the foxes flee, and Mousetta discovers that her equally shy classmates were none other than the mice she envied, who apparently also feel shy at times. Mousetta is finally comfortable enough in her own fur to lead the parade in celebration of her team’s triumph over the foxes.
A Mermaid Girl
So many children’s books address the theme of feeling like one doesn’t fit in and having the courage to be oneself, and that is fitting, as it’s a struggle we all face at one time or another. This one has the added benefit of addressing this common theme through the experiences of a group often underrepresented in our libraries. It tells of a girl who is so excited to be heading to the pool with her mom in her new burkini, feeling like “a dainty seahorse, or a splendid pineapplefish,” ready to enjoy a day as a mermaid girl. Her joy vanishes when other swimmers point out that her swimsuit doesn’t look like a “real” swimsuit, and question whether she’ll even be able to swim in it. Her mother reminds her of the brave mermaid girls who have come before her and the many more that will come later, and that to stand out is to be full of the things that make you you. With a boost of courage, she joins in and her friends see that she can do all the things they can do, until they want to be mermaid girls, too (even Sam).
A Little Ferry Tale
The illustrations are sweet in a slightly vintage sort of way that suits the story where the main character is a ferry. This little ferry finds herself jealous of the other boats at which her passengers marvel: the rough and fearless tugboat, the speedy speedboat, and the carefree and graceful sailboat. She knew her strengths (being patient and quiet and careful), but no one ever cheers for those things, so she decides to try to be more like the boats she envies. She’s sad when her attempts don’t prove successful, but in the end, she find her strengths allow her to succeed where her flashier friends fail. When fire on a nearby island threaten the animals, quiet and patient and careful are just the things that are needed
Swim, Jim!
When three young crocodiles are born, Jim is afraid to swim, but is determined to learn. Deciding that his own swamp is too dark and deep, he goes in search of a smaller swamp. Stumbling upon a kiddie pool and floaties he finds his courage, until his claw pops his floatie, but by then his sisters have joined him and point out that the pool is shallow enough to stand in. After some lessons from his sisters, he’s ready to return to the family swamp and join in the family fun. The illustrations are inviting, and the fear of learning to swim is certainly something a lot of kids can relate to.
Dress-Up Day
It’s a sweet story of a young girl who is all excited, anticipating a school costume party, but after helping her mom make a fabulous bunny costume, she is disappointed to wake up ill on the day of the party and has to miss the party. When she’s feeling better the next day, mom suggests she where her rabbit costume that day instead, and her joy is restored. Until she gets to school and the other kids stare and laugh, and she begins to doubt. Joy is restored once again when another classmate who was ill the day before also turns up in his costume, and by the end of the day he has become her best friend. The next day all the kids show up in costumes, convincing our protagonist that she’d had a great idea all along. The illustrations are charming, and the dilemma, as well as its solution are very relatable for young children: the difficulty of being all alone, and the power of a single friend to turn things around.
Hang in There!
In rhyming verse it asks the reader if they’ve ever had a day when nothing seems to go their way. It suggests a list of terrible disappointments that are both relatable and absurd: a walrus at the sink when you need a drink, scrambled worms being served for breakfast, your coat getting eaten by a goat right when it’s time to go, and so forth. It chronicles a really miserable day, illustrated with a young cat having to deal with all sorts of other animals in a difficult day at school, finally giving up and going home, only to be confronted by a yak sitting on its toys. Just when the culmination of the day’s events are about to push the kitty round the bend, a yak fart turns cries to laughter. The book ends with an admonishment never to give up hope, but to find the humor and face a bad day together with your friends. It’s fine, but I find the color scheme of the illustrations a bit jarring. I think there are better books that address the same theme without resorting to fart humor.