Vibrant, comedic encouragement to embrace one’s own style.
In Saturday Night Live alum Villaseñor’s debut graphic novel, a girl and her feline prepare for picture day.
Lola Salazar, an olive-skinned youngster with curly black hair, wakes up so ready to start her day that she’s literally crowing like a rooster. Why? It’s picture day! In the words of Lola’s sock puppets, “a day when your face becomes immortalized.” When space aliens find her yearbook, “eons from now,” Lola hopes they exclaim, “WOW, what a COOL human!” Eager to assemble an impressive look, Lola enlists her stylist, Cat, who also happens to be her family pet. Divalike Cat suggests Lola experiment with a range of styles, from a matchy-matchy pink sweatsuit to a massive mohawk. Though Cat (who gets a delightful flashback about her past as an internet influencer) wants Lola to go all out, she ultimately sees the value in Lola’s first choice: a patchwork dress featuring what Lola dreamily describes as “the colors of my soul.” A scramble to prepare for picture day is a fairly familiar storyline, and Cat and Lola’s makeover madness stays mostly on script. Nonetheless, the pair’s charming banter, fueled by Lola’s kooky energy and accentuated by Cat’s haughtiness, is rather irresistible. Sarquiz’s illustrations capture a broad range of cartoonish emotions and employ a beautifully prismatic rainbow of colors cleverly echoing Lola’s patchwork dress. Lola is cued Latine.
Vibrant, comedic encouragement to embrace one’s own style. (Graphic fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2026
ISBN: 9781962351362
Page Count: 62
Publisher: Gloo Books
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader!
Fun with friends makes for a great day.
Norbit, a salmon-colored worm with a pink kerchief, joyfully greets the day and everyone he encounters. “Hello, friends! It’s time for fun with the sun! Let’s play!” He and his menagerie of forest pals—including the sun, who grows limbs and descends from the sky—exuberantly engage in various forms of physical activity such as jumping, going down a slide, spinning around, and watching the clouds go by. Young readers will readily relate, as these are games that most children are familiar with. As day turns to night, Norbit says farewell to Sun and welcomes Moon with an invitation to continue the fun. Watkins has created a vivid world of movement and merriment. Her illustrations feature bright bursts of color that match the energy of the text, with most sentences ending in an exclamation point. The author/illustrator incorporates many elements that make for an ideal early-reading experience (despite the use of a contraction or two): art free from clutter, text consisting of words with only one or two syllables, and repetition and recurring bits, such as a continued game of hide-and-seek with Sun. Inspired by never-before-seen sketches from the Dr. Seuss Collection archives at the University of California San Diego, this is the first title for Seuss Studios, a new imprint for original stories from “emerging authors and illustrators” who “honor Seuss’s hallmark spirit of creativity and imagination.”
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader! (author's note) (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593646212
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Seuss Studios
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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