A beguiling, environmental musing on how one small act can have far-reaching consequences.
A young boy picks up a piece of litter and changes the course of the day for many other living creatures.
In the park, a soda can glints in the sun. The boy runs to pick it up and put it in the recycling bin. A smile lights up his face, but he does not know how much this one, tiny action really matters. A butterfly flutters in the sky after the boy’s good deed is complete, appropriately hinting at the butterfly effect to come. In economical text, Hughes describes the many ways that others are affected by the boy’s action. A “hungry, nibbly mouse” may have gotten sick from the can, or the storm drain may have clogged, flooding the flowers. “It mattered to seventy-three blades of grass” and one dandelion puff that the boy delicately blows. Hatam’s spacious, digital illustrations show the two-toned black-and-white boy in the middle of a colored landscape. The story stretches beyond the confines of the park via the drain that the can cannot clog and a stream that will continue to flow freely all the way to the ocean, which can’t now throw the can back onto the beach. In a spread full of joyful splashes of water, Hughes heralds: “He made the earth just a little more blue, a smidgen more green.”
A beguiling, environmental musing on how one small act can have far-reaching consequences. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4598-0910-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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