A funny, emotionally true story about adapting to change.
Penelope Rex is back, and this time she’s not the only seven-foot-tall student in Mrs. Noodleman’s classroom.
For T. rex Penelope, the lone dinosaur at school, being different has drawbacks—playing on the seesaw’s a challenge when you outweigh all your classmates, for instance—as well as perks, such as being unbeatable at basketball. Penelope loves her racially diverse human classmates and she doesn’t want anything to change. But one day it does: A new dino shows up at school. All the attention lavished on Patty Topps, a mint-green triceratops, makes Penelope wonder: “If she wasn’t the only dinosaur in school anymore…then who was she?” And why is Patty so much better than Penelope at everything, including eating neatly and spelling trampoline? It takes a while, but eventually the two dinos find common ground (“Ponies are my favorite.” “Mine, too!”), which gets them on the friendship track. (A sweetener: Penelope discovers that Patty stinks at basketball.) As in the other books in this series, Penelope may look fierce, but she’s going through challenges that will be familiar to any child learning to become a social animal. Higgins still brings his A game, including his trademark idiosyncratic specificity. In one of the craggy-cartoony art’s best sight gags, Penelope, who has lateral vision, holds a pair of binoculars up to her snout and grouses, “I can’t get these binoculars to line up with my eyes.”
A funny, emotionally true story about adapting to change. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9781368108706
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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