A playful approach to teaching kids the alphabet.
Twenty-six Alphababies prepare for bedtime.
Putting A, B, C, and 23 other little ones to bed for the night is a daunting task. The bespectacled Alpha Mom needs a megaphone to call the kids to attention: “TIME FOR BED!” From there, in a style reminiscent of Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), illustrated by Lois Ehlert, each child romps, rolls, and races to bed. Despite lights out, the kids have an “alpha pillow fight!” after which Mommy and Daddy finally get them to sleep with a kiss and one last tuck into bed. This spirited family is full of personality, each child with a different stuffed animal and pajama set and a unique journey to bedtime. The illustrations capture the bustle of a house bursting with children, from the chaos of the dinner table and children slipping on carpets and overturning houseplants in their haste to a series of bathtubs full of activity. A particularly effective string of illustrations shows the progression of lights out, from the line of light from a cracked bedroom door through the pillow fight and right into the appearance of two perturbed parents. The rhyming text bounces along, an easy read-aloud, with rich vocabulary like impish, jazzy, and scramble making for a fun, silly, relatable read with detailed, appealing illustrations. The Alphababies are diverse in skin tone, their mother is brown-skinned, and their father is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A playful approach to teaching kids the alphabet. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-399-16841-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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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BOOK REVIEW
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