Encouraging and timely.
Cooped up indoors, a child and a dog track down a broad array of objects.
Toby, a small gray dog with white and black highlights and fitted with a protective lampshade collar, can’t go out because his paw is injured. Tilly, a pale pink child with rosy cheeks and dark brown pigtails, must stay inside “until the big storm passe[s].” Their house is huge and gloomy with nary an adult in sight—what can they do? Staying indoors, they explore, looking for items related to the outdoors. Behind “doors that had always seemed closed” and drawers they’ve never touched, they find “dusty things long forgotten” and “things they had not noticed”: a skateboard, a cane, roller skates, broken umbrellas, and a deflated wading pool. They “tweak…and twiddle” their treasures into a glorious contraption: “The most amazing, astounding, and spectacular Dog-Walking, Storm-Protecting Machine!” Tilly and Toby’s quandary and solution may provide acknowledgement and inspiration for readers spending loads of involuntary time indoors during the coronavirus pandemic—although those readers are unlikely to live in Tilly and Toby’s countryside setting, which has no streets, buildings, or other houses. Garland’s copious and varied rough-but-soft textures on every surface enhance the feeling of rain outdoors and a day that’s hard to swim through while the gently bright colors show Tilly’s creativity and the still-present possibility of fun. The unnecessarily explicit message at the closing is easy to skim over.
Encouraging and timely. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5037-5866-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sunbird Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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
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
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