Good news for young list makers and animal lovers—a series starter sure to keep readers absorbed.
When spring is late, a young squirrel must put things right.
Sam adores the first day of spring, when Mother Nature—depicted as an older woman with flowing hair—visits the animals of the Quiet Woods. When Sam first met Mother Nature, she introduced him to the joys of list making, which became his passion. Next year, his carefully prepared lists help him realize that both Mother Nature and spring have failed to arrive on time. The animals gather, and Sam is tasked with creating a to-do list for Mother Nature and then delivering it to her, accompanied by Prince Errol the elk. Along the way, they meet Mother Nature’s grandchild Willow West Wind, who’s on her way to housesit so that her grandmother can take a much-needed vacation. But the trio soon learn that Mother Nature forgot to complete her springtime duties before leaving on a cruise. Now it’s up to Sam and Willow to end winter. Selfors populates her enchanting woodland setting with kindly anthropomorphized animals; children will eagerly cheer on the earnest, uncertain Sam, who initially seems like an unlikely hero but readily rises to the occasion. Brief chapters and sentences make this story ideal for independent readers, while the soothing tone and soft artwork keep the narrative tension gentle enough for sensitive youngsters. Willow and Mother Nature have paper-white skin.
Good news for young list makers and animal lovers—a series starter sure to keep readers absorbed. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781665949026
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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