Think of it as a cautionary tale. If you can fix a chair, you can put away the skateboard.
Stuff happens. Things break, but fixing them can be as much fun as breaking them, sometimes.
Young, bespectacled Joshua James is a fix-it kind of kid. Not only can he mend the chair and get the couch-pillow bridge back up, but he is an inventor as well. Getting out of bed can be a drag, so why not invent a Rube Goldberg–ian device to make the day’s entrance exciting? In Chung’s busy, clever illustrations, Joshua James’ cockamamie plans use physics and gerbils to get the job done. Hood’s text is a different matter. The rhymes are tired (“Joshua James is the Fix-It Man. / If he can’t fix it, no one can!”) and tonally out of sync with the smart ebullience of the illustrations. There are also elements of the narrative that are strangely wayward: when Joshua James’ baby sister runs afoul of a pulley, Joshua James apologizes; when Joshua James’ dad takes a header after stepping on a skateboard the Fix-It Man left on the walk, readers are told, “Everyone goofs, and things can break. / Even dads can make mistakes!” Yeah, Dad, watch where you’re walking. The characters all have brown hair and light skin.
Think of it as a cautionary tale. If you can fix a chair, you can put away the skateboard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-237085-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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