An interactive, vivid, and enjoyable tale of sibling collaboration.
Two siblings play a game and learn to save, share, and join forces in this picture book.
White kids Nikki and Dash are surprised to see a jellybean jar on the breakfast table. A note reads: “Welcome to the Jellybean Game...you will get ten beans to start…but before you eat them, let us teach you how to play. You can eat all of your beans....But if, after an hour, ten beans sit on your plate, you will get five more that hour, and five more the next, until dinnertime....You can keep all your jellybeans...or share them with each other.” When Mom doles out the jellybeans, Nikki quickly eats her portion. Dash covers his with a plate, and his pile grows. Noticing Nikki is jealous, Dash offers her 10 jellybeans if she promises to give him 12 at day’s end. They are delighted how “with each hour…their jellybean stacks grew” and acknowledge that “helping one another is the best way to go.” They celebrate by eating jellybeans, and Mom and Dad praise their teamwork. Featuring a kid-friendly game, Delauney’s engaging tale depicts the importance of creativity and a resourceful solution. The story features a relatable, positive display of sibling camaraderie. Civati’s cheerful, computerized illustrations provide key information, such as the plates’ fluctuating levels of candy. The images include bright details like jellybean-flecked backdrops and Nikki’s tie-dyed shirt. Some phrases and words like jellybeans are in multicolored letters.
An interactive, vivid, and enjoyable tale of sibling collaboration.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Mascot Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, springtime-themed reworking of a beloved tale.
The classic picture book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989) gets a makeover for Easter as the letters of the alphabet locate and decorate eggs.
The mission is simple: “Chicka chicka peek peek. / Everybody seek seek! / Find all the eggs / in the pretty pink tree.” The letters are making their way up the flowering tree in search of the hidden eggs when a “SNEEZE!” scatters everyone and the eggs fall and crack. Luckily, a bunny hops by with a haul of new ones, which the letters then paint and bedazzle, eventually sharing the newly decorated eggs with a group of bunnies. This picture book is a successfully Easter-fied version of the original: The letters go up; the letters fall down. Truly, though, that’s all the preschool crowd needs. Chung’s illustrations are simple and familiar, a direct echo of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The letters appear in colorful, bold, block form. The book has few added details, just focal images like the tree and its pink flowers, the colorful eggs, tufts of grass, and some friendly rabbits. The alphabet appears in order (both upper- and lowercase letters) at the book’s open and close. The rhyming text follows the iconic cadence of the source material, making for a worthy read-aloud that will keep little hands turning pages.
A sweet, springtime-themed reworking of a beloved tale. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781665990646
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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