by Gundi Herget ; illustrated by Nikolai Renger ; translated by Ann Garlid ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2018
The final word: there is more than one way to teach a wolf some manners.
Even a superhero sheep can’t go it alone without a trusty sidekick.
Sheep graze. Occasionally they are sheared for their wool, and occasionally they make a fine meal (especially to big bad wolves). But “As far as Arnold is concerned, any old sheep can graze.” Arnold likes to bang out the pushups and chin-ups and to dance around in circles shadowboxing. “ ‘I am a Super Sheep!’ says Arnold. But that’s not what the other sheep think. They just don’t get Arnold.” But Milo the mole does. He thinks Arnold is grand stuff and helps him with his training. When the wolf inevitably shows, all the sheep run and hide, but Arnold stands his ground (with Milo). Arnold challenges the wolf, feinting and jabbing and looking so ridiculous the wolf starts to laugh. Laughing, the wolf doesn’t notice Milo grab a stray end of Arnold’s sweater and tie it to the wolf’s tail. Round and round Arnold goes, till the wolf finally lunges to discover that his feet are all tangled up in Arnold’s diminished sweater. Down the wolf falls on his noggin, getting knocked silly. Whatever the moral of the story—go your own way; when the going gets tough, the weak get tricky—Arnold is a good and sympathetic character, the whole story drawn together by Renger’s easygoing cartoon illustrations
The final word: there is more than one way to teach a wolf some manners. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4413-2650-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peter Pauper Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
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by Elisha Cooper ; illustrated by Elisha Cooper ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2024
A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf.
A big, yellow hound dog has small, wonderful dreams.
Emma’s dreams are doggily simple. Rendered in gray, they manifest above her contentedly slumbering form: “singing, dancing, rolling in grass, splashing in water, going for walks,” and eating. After she wakes and eats, she naps again, sprawled on her back, tummy distended, the very picture of canine bliss. Pages turn, with Cooper’s lyrical text focusing on Emma and her sensations: “The days went on, shifting and taking shape, and now there were times when her whole body felt strange, but there was no stopping the days.” A gently curving line of overlapping Emmas, rising, stretching, scratching, shifting, and resettling, underscores time’s march. Adult readers may be anxious at this point, fearing Emma’s impending death with the page turn—but no, it turns out Emma’s been literally full of wonders, and she gazes mildly at a puppy emerging from her own body. Then there they are, seven little Emmas, and they now embody her dreams. Cooper’s brushy, loose watercolors, outlined in swoops of ink, complement his Emma-focused text. She resides in a human home, but her owner appears only as tan-skinned hands extending from the margin to offer a bowl of food, caress her snout, or towel off a pup. In this way, Cooper invites readers into Emma’s interiority, allowing them to sit quietly and wonder with her.
A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884763
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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by Karen Jameson ; illustrated by Marc Boutavant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2020
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history.
A sonorous, soporific invitation to join woodland creatures in bedding down for the night.
As in her Moon Babies, illustrated by Amy Hevron (2019), Jameson displays a rare gift for harmonious language and rhyme. She leads off with a bear: “Come home, Big Paws. / Berry picker / Honey trickster / Shadows deepen in the glen. / Lumber back inside your den.” Continuing in the same pattern, she urges a moose (“Velvet Nose”), a deer (“Tiny Hooves”), and a succession of ever smaller creatures to find their nooks and nests as twilight deepens in Boutavant’s woodsy, autumnal scenes and snow begins to drift down. Through each of those scenes quietly walks an alert White child (accompanied by an unusually self-controlled pooch), peering through branches or over rocks at the animals in the foregrounds and sketching them in a notebook. The observer’s turn comes round at last, as a bearded parent beckons: “This way, Small Boots. / Brave trailblazer / Bright stargazer / Cabin’s toasty. Blanket’s soft. / Snuggle deep in sleeping loft.” The animals go unnamed, leaving it to younger listeners to identify each one from the pictures…if they can do so before the verses’ murmurous tempo closes their eyes.
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7063-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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