Not an essential but still an appealing addition to an animal shelf.
Animals and people share behaviors.
“Do you like to dance? // Honeybees do, too!” On a series of paired double-page spreads, Kaner invites young readers and listeners to connect to the animal world through a series of similar activities: dancing, playing tag or leapfrog, blowing bubbles, gardening, riding piggy-back, and being babysat. Each animal activity is described in a paragraph of exposition including both the how and the why. Examples come from around the world and include honeybees, gazelles, cattle egrets, gray tree frogs, leafcutter ants, marmosets, and flamingos. Two pages of simple backmatter add additional facts, including the continents on which the animals can be found. Faucher’s watercolor illustrations show smiling animals in appropriate habitats (though not always to scale with their environments) and cheerful people with varying hair and skin colors. Many show family activities: children with caregivers picking apples in an orchard; working and picnicking in what might be a neighborhood garden; a man bathing a small boy; a woman serving cookies to playing children. A pregnant woman suns herself on a beach while children play around her. There are further interesting details in each illustration, enough to keep young readers looking. Each of the human pictures also includes a smiling cat or dog.
Not an essential but still an appealing addition to an animal shelf. (Informational picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77138-569-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
A sweet reminder that it’s easy to weather a storm with the company and kindness of friends.
Is it a stormy-night scare or a bedtime book? Both!
Little Blue Truck and his good friend Toad are heading home when a storm lets loose. Before long, their familiar, now very nervous barnyard friends (Goat, Hen, Goose, Cow, Duck, and Pig) squeeze into the garage. Blue explains that “clouds bump and tumble in the sky, / but here inside we’re warm and dry, / and all the thirsty plants below / will get a drink to help them grow!” The friends begin to relax. “Duck said, loud as he could quack it, / ‘THUNDER’S JUST A NOISY RACKET!’ ” In the quiet after the storm, the barnyard friends are sleepy, but the garage is not their home. “ ‘Beep!’ said Blue. ‘Just hop inside. / All aboard for the bedtime ride!’ ” Young readers will settle down for their own bedtimes as Blue and Toad drop each friend at home and bid them a good night before returning to the garage and their own beds. “Blue gave one small sleepy ‘Beep.’ / Then Little Blue Truck fell fast asleep.” Joseph’s rich nighttime-blue illustrations (done “in the style of [series co-creator] Jill McElmurry”) highlight the power of the storm and capture the still serenity that follows. Little Blue Truck has been chugging along since 2008, but there seems to be plenty of gas left in the tank.
A sweet reminder that it’s easy to weather a storm with the company and kindness of friends. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-85213-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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