A gentle, visually inventive book that understands exactly what small objects mean to small people.
A boy asks for a blue horse; he gets that—and something better.
Based on a short story by Guatemalan writer Halfon, this picture book follows a father preparing for an upcoming trip. The father agrees to bring his young son back a blue horse. The boy asks for nothing else, morning and night, until Dad departs and returns—with the promised blue horse and, tucked inside the package, a small green otter. The horse is quickly forgotten; the otter becomes everything. Argentinian illustrator de Tellería brings this sweet story to life in a style that feels genuinely childlike—loose pencil sketches paired with bold swashes of blue and green. The opening spread shows father and son riding an enormous blue horse across the page, the animal more gesture than anatomy, its color applied in large brushstrokes. When the otter arrives, the palette shifts: Green floods the illustrations, coloring furniture, climbing trees, warming beds. De Tellería’s compositions are pleasingly restless—figures scattered across spreads like a child’s imaginative play, toys and rooms sketched in gray while the otter blazes in vivid lime. The father’s quiet anxiety about the otter’s habit of going missing gives the book an additional emotional flavor, a parental layer invisible to the child but legible to any grown-up in the room. Human characters have skin the color of the page.
A gentle, visually inventive book that understands exactly what small objects mean to small people. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993082004
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Tapioca Stories
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren.
In talk-show host Fallon and illustrator Ordóñez’s latest picture-book collaboration, an elderly pooch waxes rhapsodic about a life well lived.
Observing Papa sitting in his chair watching TV all day, a young pup says, “I’m starting to think…you don’t do ANYTHING.” So Papa proceeds to list his accomplishments, both big and small, mundane and profound. Some are just a result of being older and physically bigger (being tall enough to reach a high shelf and strong enough to open jars); others include winning a race and performing in a band when he was younger. Eventually, the pup realizes that while Papa may have slowed down in his old age, he’s led a full life. The most satisfying thing about Papa’s life now? Watching his grandchild take center stage: “I can say lots of thoughts / but I choose to be quiet. / I’d rather you discover things and then try it.” Fallon’s straightforward text is sweetly upbeat, though it occasionally lacks flow, forcing incongruous situations together to fit the rhyme scheme (“I cook and I mow, / and I once flew a plane. // I play newspaper puzzles because it’s good for my brain”). Featuring uncluttered, colorful backgrounds, Ordóñez’s child-friendly digital art at times takes on sepia tones, evoking the sense of looking back at old photos or memories. Though the creators tread familiar ground, the love between Papa and his little one is palpable.
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781250393975
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
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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
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