bookshelf

HENRY UPSIDE DOWN

Name: HENRY UPSIDE DOWN
Author: Jenn Bailey
ISBN: 9781797235998

BOOK 4

From the Henry series , Vol. 4

by Jenn Bailey ; illustrated by Mika Song ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2026

Like a balm for anxious minds.

bookshelf

The students of Classroom Ten prepare for Garden Time—and wonder who will be named class gardener this week.

When Ms. Tanaka picks Henry, he feels “like warm honey.” The garden is a calming place where he’s always felt welcome. Since running the garden is a big job, Henry chooses BFF Katie to be his assistant. But when Ivy, Katie’s pal from tumbling class, joins them, she turns Henry’s quiet, well-ordered world upside down—doing handstands with Katie, keeping up easy banter, and “being a best friend to Henry’s best friend.” Though Henry diligently checks the list of gardening assignments Ms. Tanaka gave him, there’s nothing there about dealing with an interloper. But when the gardeners address a task they’ve been avoiding all week—readying the icky worm farm for the next gardener—Henry slowly goes from feeling left out to learning to appreciate Ivy. Focusing on the oft-unanticipated nuances of friendship, this is another sweetly sincere addition to a series centered on a youngster apparently on the autism spectrum. Ideal for burgeoning readers, Bailey’s prose is elegant in its simplicity, conveying gentle yet potent truths. Once more, she crafts a quiet tale that will speak to young worriers; Henry’s unnerved by change yet empowered to confront upheaval in his own way. Homing in on subtle moments of frustration, Song’s black-and-white, watercolor-and-ink illustrations continue to delight, this time with spots of yellow. Henry, Ms. Tanaka, and Ivy present East Asian; Katie’s brown-skinned.

Like a balm for anxious minds. (Early chapter book. 4-8)

Pub Date: April 7, 2026

ISBN: 9781797235998

Page Count: 52

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NOT SO QUIET LIFE OF MARCEL MARCEAU
by Jenn Bailey & Sherry Bushue ; illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski

- BOOK REVIEW
HENRY'S PICTURE-PERFECT DAY
by Jenn Bailey ; illustrated by Mika Song

- BOOK REVIEW
HENRY AND THE SOMETHING NEW
by Jenn Bailey ; illustrated by Mika Song

bookshelf

SPAGHETTI HEAD & CHICKEN FINGERS

by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal ; illustrated by Erica Salcedo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2026

Wild and wacky.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

bookshelf

ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

bookshelf

Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)