Fans of Angelina and dance will enjoy this very sweet story.
The ever popular mouse ballerina returns for her multi-eth adventure.
She sails into the Big Cheese, otherwise known as the Big Apple, on a grand ocean liner, with a mouse Statue of Liberty providing a welcome. Also on hand are her aunt and cousin Jeanie, as well as checkered yellow taxicabs from a bygone time. Angelina experiences her first apartment house and elevator, tours the Empire Cheddar Building and sees a Broadway performance of River Mouse. She has come to the city to perform in the Big Cheese Dance Show with her cousin, but there may be a problem. Angelina, of course, plans to dance a ballet, but her cousin is going to perform a tap dance because “[i]t’s much better than ballet.” Angelina, beset by doubts, practices her routine in the apartment by the light of the moon. Watching her dance, her cousin has a change of heart, and the two mouselings choreograph a combined ballet/tap duet. Adorned in lovely new Roaring ’20s costumes, they are a success. Holabird once again gives readers a gentle story, here one of childhood conflict resolution, while Craig’s delicately colored pen-and-ink illustrations are a pretty accompaniment.
Fans of Angelina and dance will enjoy this very sweet story. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-01560-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sweet and truly heartfelt, sure to bolster anyone confronting a sad goodbye.
The bard of board books recognizes the pain of separation.
Gripping a paintbrush in its downturned mouth, a green lizard looks unhappy right from the start. “You’re going away. It’s sad, but it’s true. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.” The reptile considers putting on a brave face or making flip comments: “Later, Alligator! Mañana, Iguana!” But our hero’s sadness is too profound and persistent for pretense. Riding the natural ups and downs of emotion, the lizard will “think of your sweet smile,” hope you’re doing very well, and “sit and sigh a while.” Memories of long walks and talks bring pleasure, but inevitably, “Iguana miss… EVERYTHING!” The narrator generously tries to be happy for its friend’s new adventures—opportunities to learn and even make new pals—knowing that, “clever and steady,” you will land on “your own two (or four!) feet.” But the protagonist, joined by four more lizards and a moose, can’t deny, “Iguana miss you” (or “Moose you”). The art has all the Boynton brio, with cameos by familiar friends like a pig, a duck, a hamster, and guitar-playing chickens. Boynton never downplays the feeling of loss but balances it with the pastel lizards, a warm palette, gentle humor and rhymes, and recognition of the departing friend’s own potential uncertainties. It’s not just the smallest who will find wry consolation in the sentiments here.
Sweet and truly heartfelt, sure to bolster anyone confronting a sad goodbye. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9780316574679
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Doesn’t add much to the Noah’s Ark canon.
Noah’s Ark as told by one of the smallest passengers: Esther the snail.
When Esther awakens, she can tell something “big” is going on. The air feels like a storm is brewing, and there’s a giant “something” far off that other animals are drawn to. As Esther watches, animals from the land, air, and water hurry toward it, their footsteps thumping, their wings thrumming, and the land, sky, and river all saying to Esther “hurry, hurry!” But Esther must find her friend Solomon. The two use their sticky feet to glue themselves to a fallen leaf, and Esther’s prayer—“Please….Help us.”—is answered with what some might see as a miracle, others as a deus ex machina: A gust of wind transports the two snails to the deck of the ark, where they say a final prayer—“Thank you, thank you”—before settling in. On the two pages that follow, readers see the ark afloat in the storm and then beached high amid mountains—a sudden ending to a somewhat breathless tale. The colors seem almost to glow in Amini’s artwork, the animals drawn in a scratchy, cartoonlike style. Those up on their snail biology may cringe: Latham uses antlers instead of tentacles, and Esther, though she is shown on land near a river, is illustrated as a sea snail, with eyes on her body. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Doesn’t add much to the Noah’s Ark canon. (Religious picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-10939-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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