Sweet stuff—lost and found.
A piglet who constantly loses his belongings regains them with help from an old friend.
After Pablo misplaces toys, backpacks, hats, and swim trunks, often multiple times, his folks help locate them—frequently with great difficulty. His parents are shown descending under the street, scaling a tree, and entering a fox’s den to retrieve Pablo’s possessions. Busy and distracted, Pablo sometimes finds even longer-lost things while searching for recently misplaced ones. Finally, his exasperated parents declare that Pablo will just have to find his missing items himself. Pablo’s predicament worsens when he can’t locate any of his most treasured possessions for his classroom’s upcoming show-and-tell session. The narrative takes a wonderfully fantastical turn when Rocco, Pablo’s long-forgotten painted rock, offers advice from the piglet’s closet. Rocco explains that many of Pablo’s possessions have relocated to a place where they can “get support and hang out with other lost things.” The duo head to a vacant building in town, where a vast array of objects, including Pablo’s things, socialize with music and conversation. Pablo’s items agree to give the piglet another chance, and they return home to Pablo’s frantic, then rejoicing parents. Youngsters will appreciate a final vignette that shows that adults often lose and find things, too: Mom’s missing teacup’s seen at the lost things club, chatting with Pablo’s left-behind water bottle. Sala’s amusing mixed-media illustrations deftly demonstrate the characters’ activities, emotions, and community-building skills.
Sweet stuff—lost and found. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781419766916
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
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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