A lighthearted look at an increasingly common scenario.
In this newest installment in Danneberg’s series following Mrs. Hartwell’s elementary school class, other staff members must step in when Mrs. H is ill.
It’s a teacher’s worst nightmare—feeling awful, you call in sick, relying on your emergency sub plans to get your class through the day…but the substitute fails to show! Various staffers fill in for the beloved teacher, but none quite fill her shoes, as her students point out in messages sent over the Homeroom Hub. The gym teacher starts the day with loud music and exercise instead of having the kids do their morning jobs, and the math teacher fails to read a Junie B. Jones book aloud with multiple character voices. Alternating or facing pages show that Mrs. Hartwell isn’t getting the kids’ messages. Instead, she’s taking care of herself and gradually starting to feel better, many of her activities matching the things going on in the class (they watch a penguin documentary; she watches dog and cat videos). When Mrs. Hartwell finally looks at her messages, she has 126, and she knows just what to do with her class the next day. Details in the watercolor, dye, and India ink illustrations will keep readers poring over them; the children’s facial expressions are an especial delight. Mrs. Hartwell has light skin; students and other staff are diverse.
A lighthearted look at an increasingly common scenario. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781623544249
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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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: yesterday
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 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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