The talking crafted toys hold considerable child appeal.
Bonnie so loves her homemade toy, Forky, teacher Miss Wendy holds a Craft Your Own Buddy Day so everyone can create a special toy from found or recycled materials.
After the children finish their projects, they leave for recess—and the newly created toys come to life. Lovable Forky is excited to have new friends to play with, but he rapidly realizes the new toys have serious existential concerns. Juice Box Robot wants someone to drink from him. Miss Paper Plate and Paper Bag Puppet are looking for food to hold. Bubble Wrap Woman begins obsessively popping herself. Everyone is feeling out of their comfort zone, arguing and yelling, so Forky takes charge before the children return and wisely explains that to be a toy, made with a child’s love and imagination, is now “the best thing to be.” The cartoon drawings emulate a child’s artistic hand, while a dual narrative that combines traditional prose text with speech bubbles moves the story along. In this companion to Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 4 (readers familiar with the franchise will recognize some of the faces in the background), Daywalt reiterates the series’ message that toys and their owners love one other. However, the underlying theme of creativity with the simplest of materials will resonate as well. Bonnie presents white, and she has racially diverse classmates.
The talking crafted toys hold considerable child appeal. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4847-9958-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney Press
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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