A brilliantly simple paean to short vowels.
Don’t let the skunk drive the bus!
High-spirited antics are the name of the game in this beginner book centered on public transportation. At a typical bus stop, atypical passengers are boarding. “Bug ran to the bus.” An odd-looking six-legged creature clutching the strap of a bright purse runs pell-mell toward the vehicle. “Hop on.” The bug is followed by a veritable array of critters, including a pig, a pup, a bat, a fox, a hen, a cat, and a slug. When a skunk joins the proceedings, everyone—including the pale-skinned human bus driver—suddenly has an urge to disembark. Everyone, that is, but the bug, who joins the skunk on a trip to the beach, where they play a game of badminton. Keeping the text admirably short for early readers, Catrow still manages to milk optimal humor out of things like the slug’s ridiculously slow boarding time. For those who notice that the slug has feet, Catrow has written a note addressing this fact. “His full name is Slug J. Caterpillar,” an allusion to the very real slug caterpillar species (though he notes that he’s given his character more legs “because he has so many things to carry”). Catrow’s style suggests chaos at every corner, yet he keeps the frenzied activities contained within his hairy watercolors. It’s an impressive accomplishment on every level.
A brilliantly simple paean to short vowels. (Early reader. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780823461080
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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
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BOOK REVIEW
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.
After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.
Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593622360
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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BOOK REVIEW
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