A sweet interspecies friendship celebrating curiosity and the courage to reach out.
A bee and a butterfly make friends in O’Connor’s illustrated children’s book.
Annabelle the bee is gently woken by Queen Mom to start the day. Like every other morning, Annabelle gets up and looks out from the opening to the beehive: “She could see a Butterfly Tree in the distance, where hundreds of butterflies were starting to wake up.” Annabelle admires the beautiful bright orange color of the butterflies stretching and opening their wings in the sunlight. She tries to copy the butterflies with her little wings, but all she can do is buzz. While collecting nectar, Annabelle meets a monarch butterfly named Benjamin and compliments his big orange wings. The two decide to take a flight around the flowers when a couple of kids with nets trap Benjamin. Annabelle leaps to his rescue, frightening the children away, and Benjamin and Annabelle become best friends. One day, Queen Mom makes an announcement: “Today is moving day. There is not enough room here for all of us anymore.” Annabelle is worried she and Benjamin will be separated if she moves too far away and goes to tell him the news. Luckily, Annabelle and Benjamin discover a hole in the back of the Butterfly Tree that would make a great new home for the bees and keep the two friends together. The final page of the book provides seven educational facts about bees. Lomazzo’s whimsical illustrations blend summery watercolor garden settings with intricately drawn characters. Annabelle stands out amongst the sea of bees by dint of her tiny pigtails, impish face, and translucent veined wings. O’Connor’s prose is effortless, distinguished by charming dialogue. The pace of the story is dynamic—moments of peaceful delight amongst the flowers are interspersed with dramatic rescues. By the conclusion of the story, young readers will be fully invested in these unlikely buddies staying together.
A sweet interspecies friendship celebrating curiosity and the courage to reach out.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781612545868
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Brown Books Kids
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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