A rhyming love note to the joys of fatherhood.
An otter dad celebrates fatherhood—and his little one.
The author/illustrator pair behind When I Became Your Grandma (2023) and When I Became Your Grandpa (2024), which featured, respectively, a panda and a lion pair, now spotlight the loving bond between father and child. Addressing his offspring in upbeat rhyming verse, Daddy declares, “You made my world complete. / I didn’t know the little things in life could be so sweet.” He expresses pride for his pup, who learns and grows each day. “If you ever lose your way and everything feels wrong,” Daddy promises to “help guide you along.” And little ones need not be afraid: “We’ll take it slowly, step by step / and walk the path as one.” “Life can be tricky sometimes,” Daddy points out, “but it’s also full of fun!” The occasionally clumsy, always sentimental verse is more likely to speak to adults than to little ones, but the cut-paper illustrations—providing the same clear, minimalist settings and bright-eyed creatures as in earlier books—are a winsome bunch. Admittedly, real-life otters aren’t monogamous, and males, who don’t raise offspring, wouldn’t actually cuddle a pup, as this involved papa does. But readers won’t notice—and the duo are certainly adorable.
A rhyming love note to the joys of fatherhood. (Picture book. 0-3)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9798887770765
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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