An adorable springtime addition to this beloved series, with an oh-so-timely message.
Beloved characters Toot, Puddle, and Opal are back in this garden mystery.
Toot, Puddle, and Puddle’s young cousin Opal are planting a garden full of vegetables and flowers. Each morning they check to see how their garden is growing. Every evening they admire their garden, dreaming of eating their crops. But when they visit the garden one morning, they notice that their lettuce leaves have been snacked on. Realizing there is an uninvited guest, the pigs build a fence around the garden. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop whatever it is from coming back to munch their lettuce and spinach. Riddled with worries and beset by nightmares about the creature, the three pigs decide to stay up all night and catch the culprit. Toot, Puddle, and Opal do everything they can to scare the creature away, but it pays them no mind, leaving at dawn. When it doesn’t come back, they begin to realize that maybe there was enough spinach for everyone. What begins as a story about suspicion and withholding ends as a sweet tale of kindness and sharing. Hobbie’s classic watercolor illustrations create a sweet, whimsical springtime garden. The pigs show great emotion on their faces and with their ears, bringing the text to life. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 27.6% of actual size.)
An adorable springtime addition to this beloved series, with an oh-so-timely message. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12466-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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