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THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE ROAD

Name: THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE ROAD
Author: Kari Rust
ISBN: 978-1-77147-335-4

by Kari Rust ; illustrated by Kari Rust ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 17, 2019

Quiet and reflective, as fleeting as summertime itself.

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Three cousins come upon an old house and find something they never expected.

It’s summer vacation, so Patrick and his sibling, the narrator, take the bus as they always do to visit Grandma; their rambunctious cousin Robert is already there. The trio gathers Grandma’s old bikes to cycle around town, eventually coming across a dilapidated house. They decide to get closer. Robert dares to throw a rock at one of the windows. A spooky ghost face appears! The kids high-tail it off the property, Patrick jumping on behind the narrator and accidentally leaving his bike behind. When Grandma finds out what happened, she takes them all back to the house to apologize. The kids learn that the figure in the window wasn’t a ghost at all but a person. In fact, they may have all just made a new friend. Related in the unnamed sibling’s first-person, past-tense narration, this Canadian import is ultimately a sweet story of intergenerational friendship. The comic-book–panel layout, coupled with Rust’s mixed-media cartoon illustrations, gives a cinematic quality that builds suspense with each page turn. Speech bubbles provide additional details to the account, which reads like a reminiscence, through sparse dialogue. The colors, switching from bright and summery to spookily desaturated, evoke emotion. While the red-haired, freckled narrator character presents white, the others have darker, more ambiguous coloring.

Quiet and reflective, as fleeting as summertime itself. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-77147-335-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Owlkids Books

Review Posted Online: July 23, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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AT THE RESCUE CAT CAFÉ
by Anna Humphrey ; illustrated by Kari Rust

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A COOP, SOME GOOP, AND A SANDWICH
by Mark David Smith ; illustrated by Kari Rust

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WEIRD SISTERS
by Mark David Smith ; illustrated by Kari Rust

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BEST BUNNY BROTHER EVER

by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Tim Bowers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 6, 2026

A tale of mutual adoration that hits a sweet note.

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Little Honey Bunny Funnybunny loves baseball almost as much as she loves her big brother P.J.—though it’s a close-run thing.

Readers familiar with the pranks P.J. plays on his younger sibling in older episodes of the series (most illustrated by Roger Bollen) will be amused—and perhaps a little confused—to see him in the role of perfect big brother after meeting his swaddled little sister for the first time in mama’s lap. But here, along with being a constant companion and “always happy to see her,” he cements his heroic status in her eyes by hitting a home run for his baseball team and then patiently teaching her how to play T-ball. After carefully coaching her and leading her through warm-up exercises, he even sits in the stands, loudly cheering her on as she scores the winning run in her own very first game. “‘You are the best brother a bunny could ever have!’” she burbles. This tale’s a tad blander compared with others centered on P.J. and his sister, but it’s undeniably cheery, with text well structured for burgeoning readers. The all-smiles animal cast in Bowers’ cartoon art features a large and diversely hued family of bunnies sporting immense floppy ears as well as a multispecies crowd of furry onlookers equally varied of color, with one spectator in a wheelchair.

A tale of mutual adoration that hits a sweet note. (Early reader. 6-8)

Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026

ISBN: 9798217032464

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: March 17, 2026

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
IT'S NOT EASY BEING A GHOST
by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Stephanie Laberis

- BOOK REVIEW
IT'S NOT EASY BEING SANTA CLAUS
by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Stephanie Laberis

- BOOK REVIEW
CHARLIE PIECHART AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING PIZZA SLICE
by Eric Comstock & Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Eric Comstock

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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)