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APPLE PIE TIRED

Name: APPLE PIE TIRED
Author: Beth Charles
ISBN: 9781534112735

by Beth Charles ; illustrated by Hannah Brinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2024

A mouthwatering, heartwarming story of teamwork.

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A delightful account of helpfulness, plans placed on hold, and disappointment avoided.

Each year, in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, Lola’s parents make and sell apple pies from their orchard store. Lola wants to help by preparing Thanksgiving dinner herself. She has all the right ideas, like organizing a daily schedule to get the advance prep done, and an eagerness to take responsibility. But each morning, as she consults her projected list—peel potatoes, snap green beans, cut carrots—she notices that her parents need her help with their task that day. Charles takes readers step by step through the pie-making process. Day One is devoted to making the bottom crust: Dad weighs and mixes the flour, Mom portions out the dough, and then Dad presses it into a pan—with assistance from Lola. In the following days, the family works on the top crust and peels and cores the apples. Finally, each family member helps with baking and selling. The job all done, Lola is “too pooped to mash, and too tuckered to cook.” So what about dinner? Then her extended family arrives, bearing contributions, and everyone pitches in, because “big jobs sure work better with a little help.” An author’s note describes the real-world model for the farm; a pie recipe and photos are appended. Warm, slightly idealized pastel illustrations add autumnal spice to this sweet book. While the protagonists are light-skinned, the farm’s clientele is diverse.

A mouthwatering, heartwarming story of teamwork. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2024

ISBN: 9781534112735

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press

Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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SPAGHETTI HEAD & CHICKEN FINGERS

by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal ; illustrated by Erica Salcedo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2026

Wild and wacky.

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A picture book from the comedy duo known as Rhett & Link, creators of the online juggernaut Good Mythical Morning.

Lumo is obsessed with chicken fingers; Saffy, who is new to town and anxious about starting school, finds comfort in the only food she likes: buttered spaghetti. The night before the first day of school, a thunderstorm rages, and each kid makes a wish—“to have chicken fingers at school,” in Lumo’s case; Saffy wishes for “the first thing off the top of her head: buttered spaghetti.” File under “Be careful what you wish for.” Lumo’s and Saffy’s respective physical changes (chicken fingers for fingers, spaghetti for hair) make navigating school a challenge but bring them together in the cafeteria, where they enjoy some new foods—and their new friendship. The plotting could have been sharper: Why do the kids’ bodies suddenly return to normal? And couldn’t the authors have thought up a less old-hat story-ending punch line? Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Neal get by on their charm, and the plot sets up some funny visuals. Salcedo’s cartoony Photoshop art features well-chosen artifacts from a typical kid’s life and captures the mortification of not fitting in, which will be familiar even to readers who have never experienced breaded fingers or noodle hair. Lumo is brown-skinned and dark-haired; Saffy is pale-skinned with disheveled reddish-brown hair.

Wild and wacky. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: June 16, 2026

ISBN: 9780063474154

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HarperPop/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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)