Wrapping up on a comforting note sure to set toddlers’ heads bobbing, this fanciful vision of what happens in the wee hours...
Children will be tickled to see the wee hours of the morning come to life as irresistible, toddlerlike imps in this whimsical tale.
Wee Hours One through Four, all carefully numbered, arrive one by one in a sleeping child’s bedroom upon their associated clock-strike (youngsters will eagerly search for the clock in each spread to double-check the time). Each mischief-maker pulls a little something from the slumberer’s dreams and incorporates it into playtime: One O’Clock bounces the sun like a ball; Two teaches the birds tricks; Three frees the horses for a jumping contest; Four releases the dinosaurs and leads all the creatures in a parade. All the while, the cat and goldfish look on, but the sleeper is never roused. The text has a cadence that lightly trips along. Luminous pastel illustrations—full-spread, characterized by reassuringly plump, rounded lines and innocently joyful faces, and featuring increasingly free-wheeling, off-kilter perspectives—capture the action. Just when the rumpus seems about to burst right out of the book, Five O’Clock arrives. Like a big brother, he soothes the Wee Hours with stories and back rubs and begins to clean up, aided by Six and Seven O’Clock.
Wrapping up on a comforting note sure to set toddlers’ heads bobbing, this fanciful vision of what happens in the wee hours is the delightful nonsense of dreams. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-4038-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
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
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A sweet, springtime-themed reworking of a beloved tale.
The classic picture book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989) gets a makeover for Easter as the letters of the alphabet locate and decorate eggs.
The mission is simple: “Chicka chicka peek peek. / Everybody seek seek! / Find all the eggs / in the pretty pink tree.” The letters are making their way up the flowering tree in search of the hidden eggs when a “SNEEZE!” scatters everyone and the eggs fall and crack. Luckily, a bunny hops by with a haul of new ones, which the letters then paint and bedazzle, eventually sharing the newly decorated eggs with a group of bunnies. This picture book is a successfully Easter-fied version of the original: The letters go up; the letters fall down. Truly, though, that’s all the preschool crowd needs. Chung’s illustrations are simple and familiar, a direct echo of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The letters appear in colorful, bold, block form. The book has few added details, just focal images like the tree and its pink flowers, the colorful eggs, tufts of grass, and some friendly rabbits. The alphabet appears in order (both upper- and lowercase letters) at the book’s open and close. The rhyming text follows the iconic cadence of the source material, making for a worthy read-aloud that will keep little hands turning pages.
A sweet, springtime-themed reworking of a beloved tale. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781665990646
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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