Fans will doubtless be happy to revisit old friends, but they will probably still reach for the original more than this once...
Thirty-one years after a wakeful flea roused the heaped-up sleepers in The Napping House, a full moon finds the household struggling to get back to sleep.
“There is a house, / a full-moon house, / where everyone is restless,” from “sleepless granny” to “fidgety child” to “playful dog” to “prowling cat” to “worried mouse.” Don Wood’s acrylics re-create the familiar bedroom with a deep blue, nighttime palette. Though the house’s denizens are restless, its furniture oozes sleepiness, the comfortably rounded bedsteads and chair back slumping forward slightly in sympathy with the granny, who is clearly desperate to get some shut-eye. In this visit to the familiar house, a “chirping cricket” finally settles everyone down with a “full-moon song” until “no one now is restless.” Audrey Wood’s cumulative story takes the same pattern as in the previous book, a mirroring that its fans will instantly recognize but that works against this follow-up’s concept. The sonorous lines are almost identical to those that describe the sleepers in the first book, but they do not conjure restlessness; moreover, as the cricket’s song works its magic and sends the characters to sleep, the page turns speed up instead of slowing down for a far-from-sleepy effect. Don Wood wisely eschews the temptation to replicate the first book’s humorously indelible image of sleeper piled upon sleeper, instead varying composition and perspective slightly with each double-page spread to create a gentle turbulence that slows down gradually as the characters calm.
Fans will doubtless be happy to revisit old friends, but they will probably still reach for the original more than this once the novelty wears off. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-30832-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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
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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