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PAPER CHASE

Name: PAPER CHASE
Author: Julia Donaldson
ISBN: 9798225014636

by Julia Donaldson ; illustrated by Victoria Sandøy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 2, 2025

Perfectly satisfying.

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Donaldson speaks for the trees in this tale of lighthearted gratitude to Earth’s leafy giants.

Rhyming couplets (“Here is a wood where the trees grow tall / And here is the tallest tree of all”) describe the day when brown-skinned James and pale-skinned Ginger meet. Her paper airplane lands in the open book he’s reading. They hit it off, playing happily together, reading stories, and building a castle with stones. After this one afternoon, they look for each other in vain. It’s hard to even identify the tree again (“So many paths! So many trees!”) until Ginger witnesses its fall at the blade of a saw and sees it being carried “off to the paper factory.” A concise montage—involving a chipper, water, and rollers—neatly outlines the process of paper-making. Sandøy’s fine-lined, full-color illustrations offer a lovely, airy sense of the outdoors and add charm to the catalog of familiar uses for the paper made from the tree. Among the new paper items are a book for Ginger and a pad of paper. James folds a piece of paper into a plane—which he’s flying when the pair meet again as the book concludes. The simple, circular tale is both a generous explanation of how humans consume natural resources and a subtle reminder that these are gifts to be respected. An author’s note emphasizes that “trees are precious” and encourages youngsters to recycle this very book should it eventually fall apart.

Perfectly satisfying. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2025

ISBN: 9798225014636

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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BERT, THE BOWERBIRD
by Julia Donaldson ; illustrated by Catherine Rayner

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JONTY GENTOO
by Julia Donaldson ; illustrated by Axel Scheffler

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THE BADDIES
by Julia Donaldson ; illustrated by Axel Scheffler

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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...

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
A PERFECT PLACE TO PLAY
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Jim Valeri

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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IT'S NOT EASY BEING A GHOST

From the It's Not Easy Being series

by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Stephanie Laberis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2024

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.

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A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.

Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)