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SOFT AND STICKY

Name: SOFT AND STICKY
Author: Jeanne Willis
ISBN: 9780593754597

by Jeanne Willis ; illustrated by Claire Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 8, 2025

A sweetly offbeat tale of the trials and tribulations of friendship.

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True friends know how to stick together.

Best pals Mr. Stick and Mr. Soft live together in a loft. Slender blue Mr. Stick is composed of “sticky stuff,” while Mr. Soft, made up of “tickly fluff,” resembles an orange pompom. These besties always stick together—literally; thus, their living arrangement, not to mention their friendship, is quite challenging. Sticky complains that Softy’s fluff gets up his nose, and Softy’s had it up to here with Sticky’s “ickiness.” Each blames the other for the impasse: “If only you would shave your fur!” Sticky complains. “It’s YOU who needs to have a wash!” Softy claps back. After sulking, each accepts the other’s suggestion, which grants them unaccustomed freedom. At first, the pair rejoice in being apart. But then reality sets in—and it bites. They can’t share good times anymore. Friends, they wistfully realize, must stay together, literally and metaphorically. This cute U.K. import, expressed in breezy verse that reads well, treads familiar ground, but it’s comforting nevertheless and makes its point effectively: True friends are willing to compromise and overlook each other’s flaws. With their noodlelike limbs and solid bodies, the expressive protagonists are an appealingly strange-looking duo who inhabit a cluttered but cozy setting.

A sweetly offbeat tale of the trials and tribulations of friendship. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: July 8, 2025

ISBN: 9780593754597

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BEAR WHO HAD NOTHING TO WEAR
by Jeanne Willis ; illustrated by Brian Fitzgerald

- BOOK REVIEW
WHAT ARE LITTLE GIRLS MADE OF?
by Jeanne Willis ; illustrated by Isabelle Follath

- BOOK REVIEW
OLD MACDONALD HAD A PHONE
by Jeanne Willis ; illustrated by Tony Ross

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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IT'S NOT EASY BEING A GHOST

From the It's Not Easy Being series

by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Stephanie Laberis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2024

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.

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A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.

Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)