Mo Willems puts his characteristic droll twist on an old favorite. Here Goldilocks isn't trespassing on the home of bears but on dinosaurs--who may have dining plans of their own. "Poorly supervised" and possibly "succulent" Goldilocks marches cheerfully past warning signs little listeners will enjoy spotting. Though some of Willems's sarcastic humor may zip over the heads of young listeners, his over-the-top energy as a narrator delivers plenty of other entertainment. He thunders out his dino-voices and squeaks his Goldilocks, all with funny sound effects playing in the background. There will be plenty of new jokes and quips to catch on the second or third time through, and Willems's tongue-in-cheek super-dramatic narration will clue listeners in to be on the lookout for them.
(Fractured fairy tale. 5-9)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2015
Duration: 8 mins
Publisher: Weston Woods Studios
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Listeners lose some of the fun without print; with print, they find confusion.
The titular penguins travel through time in this audio rendition of Dempsey’s series-opening graphic novel. When impulsive Splash proposes a tropical HOLIDAY (a fanfare accompanies the word’s every utterance), cautious Pablo is willing to go along…but the beach they find after a chaotic trip has dinosaurs! This agreeable romp has been lightly adapted for audio, relying on sound effects to convey the action. Listeners eager to see the humor those sounds evoke will want to read along with the book—but in the U.S., they’ll find that the print edition has been Americanized, whereas the audio has not. The audio's Briticisms have been “translated”—including the oft-repeated HOLIDAY, which is rendered in print as VACATION.
Listeners lose some of the fun without print; with print, they find confusion. (Graphic adventure. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2026
Duration: 48 mins
DD ISBN: 9781547620951
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2026
A disappointment.
Narrator JJ Hawkins gives voice to the hurt and anger eighth grader Jasper, an autistic trans boy, feels when his older brother goes off to college while Jasper channels his emotions into digging for fossils in the backyard. It can’t be possible…but then a saber-toothed tiger speaks telepathically to Jasper from beneath the earth. What could be cooler? Unfortunately, Gow’s free verse poems emphasize Jasper’s roiling emotions over plotting and pacing, with the result that listeners spend more time hearing how Jasper feels than they do experiencing the suspense of discovery and the excitement that ensues. Hawkins does his best to lend Jasper some nuance, but his efforts can go only so far with a character who is written as an exposed raw nerve.
A disappointment. (Verse fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9798349108426
Publisher: Dreamscape
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2026
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