This French import is well intentioned but unlikely to melt many hearts.
Even though a beloved snowman melts away, his friends learn he isn’t gone forever.
Four forest animals depend on the Snowman’s wisdom and antics. When spring’s arrival melts him away, the group sets off to the seaside to search for what’s left of the Snowman, ultimately finding him watching them from above as a puffy, snowman-shaped cloud. Learning that they can reunite with the Snowman when the snow falls is a clever and sweet wrap-up, but as a whole, the book feels stuck in the slush. The wordy, meandering plot makes the book feel aimless—is it meant to be a reflection on friendship and loss or a rollicking journey story? Since the initial relationship between the critters and their frosty friend feels underdeveloped, their grief seems contrived, and given his moderately uncanny black button eyes, some readers might be a little relieved to see the Snowman thaw. Rabbit, Hedgehog, Squirrel, and Owl share the same flaw, all portrayed in a semirealistic style but with disconcertingly blank eyes that aren’t entirely offset by their darling winter hats. Charming or moving pages are scattered through—a boisterous wagon ride; a beautifully blurred page in olive, tan, and brown of small faces staring up in wonder—but they don’t quite overcome the illustrations in which the animal’s bodies are peculiarly shaped and scaled.
This French import is well intentioned but unlikely to melt many hearts. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5526-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Toad and Little Blue Truck get ready for a hayride.
After the titular vehicle is loaded with hay, Toad is nowhere to be found. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Where are you, Toad?” asks Little Blue Truck. All the barnyard animals look for him. Sheep searches the meadow. Goose and Duck check the pond. Others pitch in, too, but Toad seems to have disappeared…until Hen hears snoring coming from the pile of hay in the back of Little Blue Truck. Although the text’s scansion is imperfect in places (adults may want to pre-read to ensure a smooth read-aloud), the bouncy meter and rhyming text nevertheless capture the energy of the search and the farmyard community’s concern for Toad’s safety, making this a solid storytime choice. Eye-catching illustrations with rich, fully saturated colors balance the right level of detail while still highlighting the animal that is the focus of each verse. By introducing one farm animal at a time, Schertle also helps the youngest readers begin to identify barnyard animals by name and understand their unique farm homes. Traditional animal sounds are part of the text, and listeners will add them to their vocabulary. It all ends with the promised hayride, bringing the tale to a joyous ending.
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9780063436121
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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