Will elicit smiles from Frenchie lovers but may stymie youngsters learning about opposites.
Another dog-themed concept book from Calmenson and Hibbert, this time focusing on opposites and French bulldogs.
A cream-colored Frenchie peacefully slumbers until he hears a particular tune and awakens with a start. The rest of the book follows him and lots of other French bulldogs as they home in on the source: an ice cream truck with free doggy treats. Their journey is filled with opportunities to learn about opposites: in-out, under-over, down-up, and high-low, to name a few. But not all these examples are well defined in the illustrations. The words “A few Frenchies follow. Then many come along” are presented on a spread with eight dogs following the sound, three roughly on the left, five toward the right. All the text is on the left, however, making it tricky for youngsters to draw a distinction between the pair. On another spread, we’re told that “running made the Frenchies hot,” but “cold doggy ice cream hits the spot.” The illustrations just show them all digging in, nothing suggesting that the animals are hot. Calmenson’s word choices are geared toward the rhymes, and the rhythm is punchy throughout. The humans depicted vary in skin tone. The backmatter stresses that French bulldogs don’t swim well, details the colors and markings of the canines in the book, and includes a picture of the real-life inspirations for the story.
Will elicit smiles from Frenchie lovers but may stymie youngsters learning about opposites. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781547614318
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
