A sweet, well-told story with important lessons on navigating friendship tensions.
A young girl and her ursine pal learn to listen.
Brown-skinned, curly-haired Coco and Bear have been BFFs their whole life. Today, Bear proposes building a snow castle; Coco says she loves the idea of a snow fort. Bear corrects her (“Well, actually, I said castle”), but Coco doesn’t listen and enlists their friends’ assistance in constructing her fort. Bear offers suggestions, but Coco tunes him out. Frustrated at not being heard, Bear explodes (“Listen to me, Coco!”). Quilber the porcupine urges the friends to take a timeout, but Bear’s too steamed to pay attention and storms off. Baby Deer has a heart-to-heart with Bear, letting him vent but telling him that he needs to practice his own listening skills—she points out that he refused to hear Quilber out. Meanwhile, Quilber tells Coco that her bossiness has alienated the others. Eventually, Bear and Coco apologize to each other—and to Quilber and Baby Deer—and everyone devises a useful communication strategy before resuming their snow play. Stott’s thought-provoking story about friendship conveys a fine message about listening patiently and respectfully. The protagonists are well realized, with relatable flaws, and learn and grow from their mistakes. Stott’s graceful illustrations, rendered in watercolor paint and digital ink, portray endearing characters who value each other.
A sweet, well-told story with important lessons on navigating friendship tensions. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781665921664
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Toad and Little Blue Truck get ready for a hayride.
After the titular vehicle is loaded with hay, Toad is nowhere to be found. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Where are you, Toad?” asks Little Blue Truck. All the barnyard animals look for him. Sheep searches the meadow. Goose and Duck check the pond. Others pitch in, too, but Toad seems to have disappeared…until Hen hears snoring coming from the pile of hay in the back of Little Blue Truck. Although the text’s scansion is imperfect in places (adults may want to pre-read to ensure a smooth read-aloud), the bouncy meter and rhyming text nevertheless capture the energy of the search and the farmyard community’s concern for Toad’s safety, making this a solid storytime choice. Eye-catching illustrations with rich, fully saturated colors balance the right level of detail while still highlighting the animal that is the focus of each verse. By introducing one farm animal at a time, Schertle also helps the youngest readers begin to identify barnyard animals by name and understand their unique farm homes. Traditional animal sounds are part of the text, and listeners will add them to their vocabulary. It all ends with the promised hayride, bringing the tale to a joyous ending.
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9780063436121
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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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