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Tuesday, 21 April 2020

Storybook Corner Book Review: Kiki & Jax by Marie Kondo





Kiki & Jax
by
Marie Kondo
Co-written and illustrated by Salina Yoon


Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia 
Publication date: 12th November 2019
Genre: Children's Picture Book
Pages: 40
RRP: $22.99AUD
Format read: Hardcover
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

Kiki and Jax are best friends, but they couldn't be more different.
Kiki likes to collect things, Jax likes to sort things.
But when things start getting in the way, can they make space for what has always sparked joy..... each other?



Kiki, a squirrel, and Jax, an owl, were best friends but they didn’t like everything the same. Kiki loved to collect things whilst Jax loved sorting things.
Kiki had so many things collected all over her house she couldn’t find what she needed when Jax came over to ask her out to play or go swimming. Kiki always had to play at Jax house. She wished she could play with her best friend at her house but there was no room.

Jax said he could help Kiki sort her collections. It was his favourite thing to do. Together they sorted and piled and stored. Now Kiki had room for all her favourite things and most important….room for her best friend.

Marie Kondo has used her life changing magic of tidying theories to include your children in the tidying process. By making it fun, tidying can be something you can enjoy together.
Salina Yoon’s full page colour illustrations give a visual aspect to Marie Kondo’s sparsely worded story making it perfect for even the younger children in the family.

In this time when children are at home more than ever this is a gentle story about the benefits of keeping a tidy room.
Although I did like the idea of sorting and categorising items into keep, donate and throw out I think she could have included something on storage and labelling so everything has its place.

Kondo includes her mantra of “sparking joy” in this story and I’m not sure how this will convert to a child’s thinking. Everything sparks joy in a child, even if it is that stone, feather or string they found on a walk.

Dot loves this story. We have read it over and over. She always says “I can be Kiki”. She loves to collect things too and she loves to look at the illustration of Kiki’s house with all her stuff spread everywhere. We read this as a fun story about a squirrel and an owl but not so much a story about keeping everything sorted and tidy.

 

 Rated by Dot  4/5      ⭐⭐⭐⭐


Photo credit: Goodreads
 


Marie Kondo has been enchanted with organising since her childhood and began her tidying consultancy business as a nineteen year old university student in Tokyo. Today she is a renowned tidying expert, helping people around the world to transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration. She stars in the Netflix show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and is the founder of KonMari Media, Inc. Marie has featured in numerous magazines and newspapers and was listed as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.
Marie lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two young children.



About the Illustrator:

Photo credit: Goodreads
 
Salina Yoon was born in Korea and emigrated to the United States at the age of four. She is an author, illustrator and format designer and has worked on nearly 200 books for young children, specialising in interactive and novelty books. She lives in San Diego, California, with her husband and their two sons.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


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