A funny and enjoyably gross friendship tale.
A frog and a toad are friends.
Ill-tempered toad Tot perks up at the prospect of making a meal for his hungry but cheerful little frog (or at least froglike) pal Zoggy: Tot “piled the platters / with things brown and green, / both sticky and slimy, / and gray in between.” Unfortunately for Zoggy, the first dish Tot brings him isn’t exactly enticing: “Tot started things off / with a strange appetizer, / which Zoggy thought smelled / like some fresh fertilizer.” Not once but twice, Zoggy manages to avoid sampling Tot’s culinary creations, but soon the table is overrun with dishes, and Zoggy has only one way out: He gives Tot the first vile bite. While Tot is too proud to admit that he failed, he’s graceful enough to accept Zoggy’s offer to make him what turns out to be a real delicacy: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. A few of the rhymes stumble, but others verge on the Seussian (“He started chopping and stirring— / there were chunks, there were slices / He used toasters and fryers / and other devices”), and there’s even a Grinch-and-Max dynamic between curmudgeonly Tot and sweet, loyal Zoggy. The art does justice to the text’s repulsive descriptions of Tot’s kitchen experiments, which quiver and quake against color-washy backgrounds that would be at home in a story that’s not disgusting at all.
A funny and enjoyably gross friendship tale. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798225071479
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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