A gentle tale of flying high that falls a bit flat.
A young witch prepares for her first flying test.
Light-skinned Little Witch has curly orange hair and a pointy black hat. She practices diligently for the upcoming flying test but keeps leaving her broom in odd places, like the forest where Ramshackle Rat lives. By the time she finds it, it’s been gnawed on and its bristles are broken. As for her flying ability, she “dipped and doodled, / Rose and sunk, / Flew in a circle, / And landed BUMP!” On the big day, she arrives at the testing center looking a little worse for wear and promptly fails her first attempt; her fellow witches snicker. That night, however, she dips and doodles her way through a thunderstorm to help Ramshackle Rat, whose house has been struck by lightning. Surprisingly, with Ramshackle Rat on the back of her broom, she “flew like an arrow, / High and aloft / And when she came down, / Her landing was soft.” With the support of her new friend, she passes the test the next day with “flying colors” despite receiving continued criticism from the other young witches. Though Maruno’s bland text and Ritchie’s heavily lined, sketchy illustrations are mildly entertaining, and Little Witch is an endearing protagonist, much of the humor—a test center reminiscent of the DMV, for instance—will resonate only with readers familiar with real-world driver’s tests.
A gentle tale of flying high that falls a bit flat. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9781772783209
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pajama Press
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Toad and Little Blue Truck get ready for a hayride.
After the titular vehicle is loaded with hay, Toad is nowhere to be found. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Where are you, Toad?” asks Little Blue Truck. All the barnyard animals look for him. Sheep searches the meadow. Goose and Duck check the pond. Others pitch in, too, but Toad seems to have disappeared…until Hen hears snoring coming from the pile of hay in the back of Little Blue Truck. Although the text’s scansion is imperfect in places (adults may want to pre-read to ensure a smooth read-aloud), the bouncy meter and rhyming text nevertheless capture the energy of the search and the farmyard community’s concern for Toad’s safety, making this a solid storytime choice. Eye-catching illustrations with rich, fully saturated colors balance the right level of detail while still highlighting the animal that is the focus of each verse. By introducing one farm animal at a time, Schertle also helps the youngest readers begin to identify barnyard animals by name and understand their unique farm homes. Traditional animal sounds are part of the text, and listeners will add them to their vocabulary. It all ends with the promised hayride, bringing the tale to a joyous ending.
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9780063436121
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
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)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
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