A delicious cooking adventure that storytimers will love like anything.
Donaldson and Roberts cook up a treat for young readers.
After yet another soggy pizza from a box, the king decides he needs a cook “like anything.” He “trie[s] out lots and lots of cooks” and decides on Wobbly Bob, who looks the part but has “feet that [shuffle] and hands that [shake]” and admits to being “a bit of a wimp.” Wobbly Bob may well turn out to be more royal disaster than royal cook. The king fancies a supper of fish and chips, but Wobbly Bob is scared of everything—fishing, digging the spuds, chopping, and frying. “I’m scared! I’m scared! I’m terribly scared,” is Wobbly Bob’s constant refrain, but the cheerful king helps every step of the way. “He fished and he fished like anything”; “he dug and he dug like anything”; “he chopped and he chopped like anything.” In fact, the king does all of the work and congratulates Wobbly Bob for the “delicious dish,” which they sit down and eat together. Donaldson’s lively rhyming text, tailor-made for reading aloud, is nicely complemented by Roberts’ colorful illustrations—strong on facial expressions that add to the story so that no explanation is needed when Wobbly Bob looks quizzical when the king congratulates him on his “great cooking” and gives him the job. Complexions in this medieval European–esque kingdom vary from pale to ruddy.
A delicious cooking adventure that storytimers will love like anything. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3757-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
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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