Here’s to spring green, togetherness, and looking to the trees.
A small rabbit tired of the loneliness of winter wants to know when spring will finally arrive.
Little Rabbit is hungry without meadow grass to eat and run through and his friends to play with; they’re either down south or hibernating. When will it be spring? Unsatisfied with his parents’ answers—wait and be patient—Little Rabbit seeks out wise Grandmama Rabbit. Her advice is to ask the trees, for only they will know when spring will come. But Little Rabbit fears he is too little to attract the trees’ attention, his voice too small for them to hear, and his ears too weak to hear their answer. Tuckered from his attempts to gain an answer, he falls asleep among a tree’s roots, waking up when a familiar but long-unsmelled odor tickles his nose and a song he hasn’t heard in a while fills the air. And when he opens his eyes, he spies the first bits of green signaling spring. The gouache, pastel, and digital illustrations are smudgy and full of the whites, blues, and browns of a wintertime forest, and the rabbits’ fur is alight with patches of pastel blue, pink, and yellow. Young readers who are similarly tired of all the indoor play and loneliness of winter will eagerly turn to the trees to see their own signs of spring. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Here’s to spring green, togetherness, and looking to the trees. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0492-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree.
A Christmas edition of the beloved alphabet book.
The story starts off nearly identically to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), written by John Archambault and the late Bill Martin Jr, with the letters A, B, and C deciding to meet in the branches of a tree. This time, they’re attempting to scale a Christmas tree, not a coconut tree, and the letters are strung together like garland. A, B, and C are joined by the other letters, and of course they all “slip, slop, topple, plop!” right down the tree. At the bottom, they discover an assortment of gifts, all in a variety of shapes. As a team, the letters and presents organize themselves to get back up on the Christmas tree and get a star to the top. Holiday iterations of favorite tales often fall flat, but this take succeeds. The gifts are an easy way to reinforce another preschool concept—shapes—and the text uses just enough of the original to be familiar. The rhyming works, sticking to the cadence of the source material. The illustrations pay homage to the late Lois Ehlert’s, featuring the same bold block letters, though they lack some of the whimsy and personality of the original. Otherwise, everything is similarly brightly colored and simply drawn. Those familiar with the classic will be drawn to this one, but newcomers can enjoy it on its own.
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665954761
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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