A sunny, woodsy debut that highlights the importance of speaking up for oneself.
An enterprising young bunny stands up to an unfairly demanding teacher in Pooler’s picture book.
The fledglings of Acorn Hollow love the freedom of summertime, when they can play outside and go swimming whenever they like. But when the new school year starts, these young ones can’t help but feel nervous because of the reputation of their new teacher, Miss Nittypicky: “‘Now children,’ she demanded on the first day, ‘this year you will have no recess and heaps of burrowwork!’” She isn’t kidding, either; bunny Fleur and her friends are always tired from their constant academic labors and lack of rest. Even the Sun is sad without his outdoor animal friends, and he cries huge tears that cause a downpour in Acorn Hollow. Fleur tells her mother about the problem and organizes a town meeting, after which several families go to Miss Nittypicky to ask her to change her strict ways. Pooler’s debut picture book is a sweet and simple foray into a cozy fantasy academic world that encourages readers to stand up for their rights. While it’s unclear why a meeting with the entire town was necessary to convince Miss Nittypicky to quit her persnickety ways, the story’s core message—that children need a certain amount of freedom to thrive—is loud and clear. McKie’s illustrations bring Fleur’s world to life with a balance of warm and cool tones that convey both optimism and gloom as the school days get more difficult.
A sunny, woodsy debut that highlights the importance of speaking up for oneself.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2025
ISBN: 9798999647900
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Books By Emily Ann
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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