A sweet story about the effectiveness and impact of community and kindness.
A child helps the local bakery when customers respond negatively to their Pride month cookie.
The appropriately named Cookie—the “world’s greatest cookie lover”—is excited to visit the Cookie Cubby with Mommy and Mama to taste the featured monthly cookie. Ms. Madeleine has baked rainbow cookies for Pride, complete with a handmade “Love Is Love” sign to hang in the shop window. Cookie couldn’t be happier with the monthly special, but the next day, Ms. Madeleine discovers a note on her door from a client canceling an order because of the rainbow cookies. Cookie wants to help, but piggy bank change can’t buy many cookies, and Ms. Madeleine keeps receiving disapproving messages. That’s when creative Cookie has an idea to bring more community friends together to support the Cookie Cubby, resulting in a celebration of sweetness and love. Newman’s text is clear and direct, creating a safe space for young readers to ask questions and better understand the nuances of a complex social topic, while Asterplume’s soft, bright illustrations depict a warm, diverse community. With an emphasis on friendship and love rather than fear or negativity, this book will gently guide conversations with young children that leave them feeling empowered. Cookie, Mama, and Ms. Madeleine are pale-skinned, while Mommy is brown-skinned.
A sweet story about the effectiveness and impact of community and kindness. (recipe, author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781646146314
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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: Aug. 11, 2026
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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