A deeply satisfying adventure for readers young and old.
An industrious raccoon helps wherever she’s needed.
Living in a restaurant, where she cooks creatively and continuously after hours, the pointy-faced Night Chef savors what she can of her life, but hers is a solitary existence. When she unexpectedly becomes caretaker for a baby crow, she decides to find the hatchling’s family. While searching, she lands at a tiny riverside diner run by a mole, staffed by frogs, and patronized by a panoply of animals. Thrilled to discover this small community, she dives right into helping prepare meals. Unfortunately, the restaurant is being terrorized by a frenzied owl, whose attacks threaten to shut down the whole cozy, companionable operation. Night Chef continues her journey to find the young crow’s family, stopping at an empty diner to whip up a meal for a group of hungry fellow raccoons and leaping aboard a train car filled with barking dogs, but she soon returns to defend her newfound culinary home against their owl attacker by drawing on community connections, culinary skills, and a healthy heap of bravery. Song’s lighthearted, expressive character studies and simple, specific scenery, rendered with textural ink-and-watercolor artwork, blend into a true visual treat. Intimately realized scenes of kitchen life envelop readers; Song’s imaginative specificity revels in small moments of plating and serving, cleaning and closing, as well as the rich rewards of working as a team.
A deeply satisfying adventure for readers young and old. (frittata recipe) (Graphic animal fantasy. 6-10)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780593303153
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Laugh-out-loud humor, a thickening plot, and an unforgettable leading man—this playful series just gets better and better.
A fish boy gets lost on a field trip.
As he and his classmates tour Olde Town Barnacle Bay, Sashimi cracks jokes and makes fart noises with his sopping wet shoes (he’s half fish and has to stay damp, after all). Fed up, his teacher sends him back to the bus. But he boards the wrong vehicle: It’s air-conditioned, the students who eventually join him are wearing uniforms, and there’s a bald-headed boy who looks suspiciously like him (Sashimi has a bright-orange hairless fish face) staring him down. These upper-crust elementary schoolers spot the odd fish-boy out—“EWWWW!” “He’s poor!”—and abandon him by the roadside. Thankfully, Sashimi’s classmates launch a rescue mission. Somewhere in the hullabaloo, Sashimi licks a slug, sending him on a psychedelic trip; here, the art inventively shifts to a series of photos depicting felt versions of the book’s characters. Absurd action sequences and goofiness perfectly pitched to tween sensibilities run the show here, but the series’ story arc advances cleverly, too. Barnacle Bay’s mysteries deepen, Sashimi gets an important clue about the legendary beast that supposedly lurks in the nearby waters (and potentially his own origins), and his friendships—even with his stiff-lipped field-trip partner, Chloe—are strengthened. Santat’s cartooning remains effortlessly ebullient, keeping readers turning pages at a breakneck speed. Human characters vary in skin tone.
Laugh-out-loud humor, a thickening plot, and an unforgettable leading man—this playful series just gets better and better. (Graphic fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781250359964
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
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