An enjoyably spooky outing starring a team of diminutive, endlessly inventive veggies.
Baker’s lively legumes return for a Halloween adventure.
In lightly rhyming text, an unseen narrator proposes costume ideas: “A wicked witch with a pointy hat, / a ghost, / a goblin, / or the witch’s cat? / A skeleton with a cane to tap. / Or a flying, flapping, vampire bat!” The suggestions continue, riffing on classic monsters, children’s stories like Peter Pan, and fairy-tale characters such as Rapunzel and Goldilocks. The peas could dress up as animals, Albert Einstein, or “a centipede with fifty friends— // that’s a hundred feet from end to end!” On several spreads, the peas are dwarfed by large-scale lettered phrases like “October 31.” Using ladders, they carve hulking pumpkins with saws, relying on slings and ropes to remove pulp and carrying seeds and harvested chunks away in wheelbarrows. Baker uses the peas’ roundness to their advantage when outfitting them in costumes; one masquerades as an “evil blue” eyeball, others as the planets Earth and Saturn. Many don headgear like flower bonnets or the Statue of Liberty’s crown. A poignant bit of text also gently suggests that eschewing costumes is just fine, too: “Or be yourself… // a little green pea!” Jack-o’-lanterns glow yellow and orange against dark blue-violet spreads as the costumed, treat-seeking peas hit the neighborhood on Halloween night.
An enjoyably spooky outing starring a team of diminutive, endlessly inventive veggies. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781665940269
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how many mediocre sequels you can squeeze out of Seussian property.
Since a reformed Grinch is hardly any fun, this follow-up Grinches him up once more.
Those seeking more of the same, prepare to receive precisely that. Christmas is coming (again!), and the Grinch can hardly wait. He’s been patient all year, and now he can finally show the Whos down in Who-ville how much he’s changed. When the Grinch learns of a tree-decorating contest, he figures that if he wins, it’ll prove he truly has the Christmas spirit. He throws himself into the task, but when it comes time to judge the trees, the Grinch is horrified to discover that he’s received only the second-place trophy. Can Cindy-Lou Who find the words to save the day? Replicating many of the original beats and wordplay of the original, this tale feels like less a sequel and more like a vaguely rewritten variation. Meanwhile, Ruiz’s art seeks to bridge the gap between the animated Chuck Jones version of the Grinch and the one depicted in the original book. This thankless task results in a strange uncanny valley between Seuss and Jones but does allow the artist a chance to colorize everything and lend some racial diversity to the Who population (Cindy-Lou is light-skinned). (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how many mediocre sequels you can squeeze out of Seussian property. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780593563168
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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