Elsie moves with her widowed father from bustling 19th-century Boston to the vast Nebraska plains, where she misses the hymns, play songs and hum of her Eastern city. Yolen’s measured, moving verse shimmers with brilliantly honed images and sharp details. Readers won’t forget the “maple chest / packed with linens her mother had sewn / over the long year before she died.” Ink, watercolor and pastel illustrations, both fluid and precise, suggest the brisk movement of the external world and the subtlety of internal emotions. Lithe strokes of color and line describe rippling fields, the arc of a jump-rope and even grief in the face of a father. Masterfully composed full- and half-page spreads frequently place Elsie in upper and outer quadrants, with grasses, land, buildings and bare rooms pushing her into the periphery. She appears marginalized by larger forces, making it easy for young children to empathize with this small, displaced girl who can’t see Nebraska’s wild, rambling beauty or hear the musical buzz of its insects. This poignant and powerful picture book closes with an uplifting rising of prairie voices—music to Elsie’s ears. (Picture book. 4-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-399-25292-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
Wild and wacky.
A picture book from the comedy duo known as Rhett & Link, creators of the online juggernaut Good Mythical Morning.
Lumo is obsessed with chicken fingers; Saffy, who is new to town and anxious about starting school, finds comfort in the only food she likes: buttered spaghetti. The night before the first day of school, a thunderstorm rages, and each kid makes a wish—“to have chicken fingers at school,” in Lumo’s case; Saffy wishes for “the first thing off the top of her head: buttered spaghetti.” File under “Be careful what you wish for.” Lumo’s and Saffy’s respective physical changes (chicken fingers for fingers, spaghetti for hair) make navigating school a challenge but bring them together in the cafeteria, where they enjoy some new foods—and their new friendship. The plotting could have been sharper: Why do the kids’ bodies suddenly return to normal? And couldn’t the authors have thought up a less old-hat story-ending punch line? Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Neal get by on their charm, and the plot sets up some funny visuals. Salcedo’s cartoony Photoshop art features well-chosen artifacts from a typical kid’s life and captures the mortification of not fitting in, which will be familiar even to readers who have never experienced breaded fingers or noodle hair. Lumo is brown-skinned and dark-haired; Saffy is pale-skinned with disheveled reddish-brown hair.
Wild and wacky. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 16, 2026
ISBN: 9780063474154
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperPop/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
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