Between snorts and giggles, kids will soon discover they’re READING! (Early reader. 4-8)
What does an uber-confident tiger about town have to worry about? Flowers? Apples? Books? Of course not! Unless they’re teeming with—WORMS!!!
This tiger loves flowers, but flowers are buried in dirt, and everyone knows worms LOVE dirt. Apples are juicy and crunchy and sweet. The tiger loves apples, but so do WORMS!!! The tiger also LOVES books…unless they’re about the one thing the tiger’s terrified of—WORMS!!! It’s impossible to tell their tops from their bottoms! (Gross!) As the tiger overreacts and drops object after object, what does the resulting trail of flowerpot shards, apple pulp, and a tossed-aside book attract? Squirmy, slimy WORMS!!! Guess what worms are afraid of? Furry, noncrawling TIGERS! After all, “you can tell their tops from their bottoms!” (Gross!) But this tiger left these worms some wonderful dirt. This tiger left these worms a delicious apple. And this tiger left these worms the best thing of all—a book! Time to give this tiger a WORM HUG! “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!” Higgins’ latest addition to the Elephant & Piggie Like Reading series is an exclamation-point–packed, liberally uppercased rambunctious rollick through the irrational world of phobias. His Hobbes-like feline is a master of inscrutability (NOT!). Expressions ranging from cheesy grins to abject terror race across the tiger’s face faster than you can thumb a flipbook.
Between snorts and giggles, kids will soon discover they’re READING! (Early reader. 4-8)Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-04573-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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