By and large, a short and sweet pick for newly independent readers.
Hornbeam the moose returns with his pals.
Hornbeam appears in all three new stories, while Eureka the gander shows up in two. In the first, Eureka and Hornbeam head to the town’s annual swap meet. Eureka’s set on exchanging his old suitcase for a rake, while Hornbeam adopts a more flexible approach, unsure what he’ll take as a trade for his old badminton racket. The next story, “Blue Team,” bears no obvious connection to the first, with Hornbeam joining a volleyball team. Eureka doesn’t appear; instead, Hornbeam’s joined by Adorabelle the skunk. Athletic Adorabelle encourages Hornbeam to join her in playing against the rival Red Team, which has a giraffe as its star player. Hornbeam and Eureka reunite for the last story, “Adventure World,” in which they join Adorabelle to celebrate Cuddy the bull’s birthday. Without a narrative thread to unite the three entries, Howard’s cartoon-style illustrations, rendered in colored pencil, watercolor, and gouache, provide necessary cohesion, as well as charmingly humorous visual characterization. The images should also help new readers decode the text, which contains some complex vocabulary, such as badminton, position, and inevitable. Like previous installments, this one features plenty of humor, but friendship is at the heart of this tender tale.
By and large, a short and sweet pick for newly independent readers. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2025
ISBN: 9781665954747
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
A charming tale of an athlete who may not steal any bases but who will certainly steal readers’ hearts.
Ohtani, pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, teams up with Blank and Liem to tell the story of how his dog, Decoy, threw out a ceremonial first pitch.
It’s a big day! Decoy leaps “off the bed. Then back onto the bed. Then off the bed.” The enthusiastic pup heads outside to practice with his lucky baseball but is quickly distracted by squirrels (“we’ll play later!”), airplanes (“flyin’ high!”), and flowers (“smell ya soon!”). Dog and pitcher then head to the ballpark. In the locker room, Decoy high-paws Shohei’s teammates. It’s nearly time! But as Shohei prepares to warm up, Decoy realizes that he’s forgotten something important: his lucky ball. Without it, there will be “no championships, no parades, and no hot dogs!” Back home he goes, returning just in time. With Shohei at the plate, Decoy runs from the mound to his owner, rolling the ball into Shohei’s mitt for a “Striiiiike!” Related from a dog’s point of view, Ohtani and Blank’s energetic text lends the tale a sense of urgency and suspense. Liem’s illustrations capture the excitement of the first day of baseball season and the joys of locker room camaraderie, as well as Shohei and Decoy’s mutual affection—even when the ball is drenched in slobber, Shohei’s love for his pet shines through, and clearly, Decoy is focused when it matters.
A charming tale of an athlete who may not steal any bases but who will certainly steal readers’ hearts. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780063460775
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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