Gorgeous.
Seeds planted at the end of kindergarten become towering sunflowers as summer comes to a close.
Ms. B gives each of her students four seeds: “one for the birds, / one for the rain, / one to taste, / and one to grow.” The unnamed student narrator describes how each seed is carefully planted in a cup, watered, placed on a windowsill in the sun, and diligently observed by the kids. At home, the narrator’s first-person plural changes to the singular as the seedlings—dubbed Yoda, Kermit, and the Hulk—continue to grow. Tragically, a storm drowns the Hulk, and then a deer trims Yoda’s leaves. Even so, Yoda continues to grow alongside Kermit till both are taller than the narrator and Kermit looms over “our neighbor Sam, / who is the tallest human I know.” Heck’s understated text conveys the narrator’s awe, expressed in precise descriptions of the flowers in all their phases. She offers ample space for readers to admire her paintings, done in thickly applied oil. The brown paper backdrops lend warmth to the characters’ skin tones and act as negative space that defines Heck’s compositions, often to startling effect. The backgrounds also contrast with the textured strokes of yellow and gold, set against heartbreaking blues; they cannot help recalling van Gogh, though these blooms are never confined to a vase. The narrator presents white; the classmates are racially diverse.
Gorgeous. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781646146239
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming mix of science lesson and winsome storytelling.
The perky red squirrel introduced in The Leaf Thief (2020) is confused.
Bird and Squirrel both love summer, but when Bird calls out a cheery “Night night,” Squirrel, yawning himself, is incredulous: “BEDTIME? It can’t be! The sun’s still up, look!” Naturally there’s a lot more bewilderment ahead. Some weeks later, Squirrel is alarmed to see it’s dark at toothbrushing time. In skittish Squirrel’s view, a “sun thief”—who also made an odd “hoo” sound the other night—is responsible. Bird explains that as summer goes on, the sun sets earlier and earlier each night and reassures Squirrel that owls cry “hoo.” But the very next evening, at bathtime, Squirrel shines a bright light into the dark, sees something looming, and screams that the sun thief has “crashed into my tree!” Patient Bird, roused from slumber, points out that it’s just Bat. But “why was she flapping about in the dark?” Now Bird explains what nocturnal means. Once again, Squirrel is amusingly slow on the uptake, allowing readers to feel superior as Hemming gently folds in some science. Slater’s witty illustrations also lighten the lessons: Bird hangs a tiny T-shirt and shorts on a diminutive laundry line and sleeps tucked into a cozy repurposed sardine can, where a scared Squirrel attempts to squeeze in; Squirrel sports a pink bath towel and shower cap; a real thief quietly makes off with a couple of items (though Squirrel and Bird remain blissfully unaware).
A charming mix of science lesson and winsome storytelling. (info on light changes and diurnal/nocturnal) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464258183
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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