Tender, expressive, and important.
During an unassailable drought, a young girl wishes for rain.
The child and her father survey their farm amid the hush of dawn. Spotting hungry critters among the rows of squash, tomatoes, and poblanos, the girl rushes ahead to shoo them away, Pá at her heels. When Pá notices a horned toad, he scoops it up and kisses its wee head. “Eww!” the child replies. “Then you make a wish,” says Pá, “and let them go.” Má laughs, and the three farmers toil through the morning, caring for crops that have withered under the oppressive might of a long drought. The land was once “as green as jewels,” back when Great-Grandpa tilled it; it was nourished “by a cobalt river” that’s since vanished. As Má hopes for rain clouds, Pá hangs his head. The girl, however, moves forward, searching for a horned toad’s much-needed magic. She returns to her parents with a wish for an earth that could exist free from those who seek to exploit it. Kemp’s pensive, elegiac tale unpacks the hard-earned minutiae of a farming family’s everyday lives, as well as the encroaching consequences of human-fueled climate change, told from a young girl’s compelling, vivid perspective. Each line mounts to a gradual call to action by the closing spread. Espinosa’s striking pencil-etched artwork portrays arid earth, parched skies, and resilient brown-skinned people. The farming family is cued Latine.
Tender, expressive, and important. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9780593710302
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Random
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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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
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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