Twinkle, the Littlest Star - Leslie Colburn - ★★★★.¼

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AUTHOR: Leslie Colburn
ILLUSTRATOR: Marcin Piwowarski
GENRE: Children's Picture Book
PUBLICATION DATE: November 12, 2024
RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A picture book combining the story of Christmas with the popular nursery rhyme. I love how the two are intertwined. Leaves some questions unanswered, but overall, this unusual Christmas picture book is a winner.


Plot Preview:
Twinkle is the smallest star and doesn’t glow as bright as the other stars around her. She feels a little dismayed at being so dim, but at the encouragement of the moon, she goes in search for her purpose. When an angel appears to her, she finally realises her role.


At a macro level, I loved this story. ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ is such a popular nursery rhyme, but this book brilliantly turns the small star into a spotlight for a very memorable birth. I didn’t expect Christmas content in this book because I had grabbed it only for the cover and the title. A pleasant surprise, indeed!

Twinkle is a great eponymous character. I like how she keeps on trying despite being rejected by the other stars, and how she doesn’t hesitate to approach even those who were bigger and brighter than her. She also makes peace with herself after a point, instead of stressing endlessly over her dimness. There are many values that little ones can learn from her.

A couple of things stopped me from going higher in my rating. For one, there’s no explanation of how Twinkle suddenly turned bright. She was dim, the angel takes her near Earth, and suddenly, she is bright! Her apparent increased brightness makes sense to Earth dwellers as the star is closer to them now, but to Twinkle herself, her light would be the same level. Did something magical occur? Did the angel grant her more luminosity? I would have liked some *light* shed on this point. I also wasn’t too satisfied with the very last line of the story: ‘a prince, a newborn king.’ While Christians know that both these terms are used to refer to Jesus, seeing both ‘prince’ and ‘king’ in a single sentence and referring to the same baby at once might confuse some little ones.

The story is written in simple rhymes in the ABCB scheme. I am not usually a fan of rhythmic prose, but they work well in this book and stick to the meter. Most of the words are fairly easy, and the trickier ones are simple to explain. The dialogues in the story are written in a lovely highlighted font with bright colours, while the rest of the text is in ordinary serif. This makes the conversations stand out.

The illustrations are really cute. Twinkle looks like a little ballerina with her tutu and ballet shoes. I would have expected a star to be dressed in white, so her Barbie-pink vest and aubergine tutu was a colourful surprise. There’s a smudged pastel kind of effect to the graphics, which works excellently for this story.

Definitely recommended. Just as the original nursery rhyme is a lullaby, this one too would make a lovely bedtime tale. It’s charming enough to be read throughout the year, but would be especially magical in this blessed season. The story ought to work well for ages 3-8.

My thanks to Cross My Heart Press for providing the DRC of “Twinkle, the Littlest Star” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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