A whimsical story about carving one’s own path and staying true to oneself.
An adorable ghost who loves romping in nature andscaring people finds a way to embrace both sides of his personality.
Wolfgang lives in a meadow alongside a group of fellow supernatural beings. He spends his time practicing spooky skills such as casting spells and making things fly, hoping to one day succeed his hero, the Mighty Hubert, as haunter of the Dark Castle. But when he achieves his dream, he realizes he misses his cloud-gazing, wildflower-picking days. Can Wolfgang balance the spooky with the sweet? The vibrant digital images, which incorporate graphite, colored pencils, gouache, and acrylic gouache, rely on a warm, bright palette to depict meadow scenes and grayscale and shadowy neutrals to depict the Dark Castle. Readers will delight in poring over the whimsical creatures: Wolfgang has expressive eyes and rosy cheeks under his ghostly sheet, while the other supernatural beings include a red, white-eyed creature with snakes for hair, a bearded cat with a pink unicorn horn, and a mummy with a pirate’s eyepatch and bandana. Fans of Jessie Sima’s Not Quite Narwhal (2017), which also centers on a mythological being who’s learning to blend various aspects of life, will delight in Wolfgang.
A whimsical story about carving one’s own path and staying true to oneself. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780063288942
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Toad and Little Blue Truck get ready for a hayride.
After the titular vehicle is loaded with hay, Toad is nowhere to be found. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Where are you, Toad?” asks Little Blue Truck. All the barnyard animals look for him. Sheep searches the meadow. Goose and Duck check the pond. Others pitch in, too, but Toad seems to have disappeared…until Hen hears snoring coming from the pile of hay in the back of Little Blue Truck. Although the text’s scansion is imperfect in places (adults may want to pre-read to ensure a smooth read-aloud), the bouncy meter and rhyming text nevertheless capture the energy of the search and the farmyard community’s concern for Toad’s safety, making this a solid storytime choice. Eye-catching illustrations with rich, fully saturated colors balance the right level of detail while still highlighting the animal that is the focus of each verse. By introducing one farm animal at a time, Schertle also helps the youngest readers begin to identify barnyard animals by name and understand their unique farm homes. Traditional animal sounds are part of the text, and listeners will add them to their vocabulary. It all ends with the promised hayride, bringing the tale to a joyous ending.
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9780063436121
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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