This has a bit of the feel of an extended greeting card and should appeal to caregivers who want to maximize snuggles.
A love letter to animal babies.
Unseen animal parents (except for an adult giraffe and calf on the final pages) share what they love about their little ones in five rhyming couplets that are parceled out, one per double-page spread. The baby beasts cavort through the pages engaging in toddlerlike behavior—playing at the beach, splashing in puddles, and messing about with paints and brushes—in full-bleed scenes, likely created on a computer, that have a mock-homespun look. A penguin chick, a baby mouse, and an elephant calf, among others, are depicted in rounded forms embellished with faux stitch work, à la the artist Sandra Magsamen; the subtle, fabriclike patterns associate them with stuffed animals. Each page, including the cover, has a heart-shaped die-cut hole in ever decreasing sizes for a layered look, culminating on the final page with a sparkly, red heart. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Baby, the companion title in this aptly named series, To Baby, with Love, features the same cast of characters. The focus is on bedtime routines, and here, a star, appropriately enough, is the featured die-cut element.
This has a bit of the feel of an extended greeting card and should appeal to caregivers who want to maximize snuggles. (Board book. 6-18 mos.)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-6801-0517-9
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
Menacing and most likely to appeal to established fans of its co-creators.
Existing artwork from an artistic giant inspires a fairy-tale reimagination by a master of the horror genre.
In King’s interpretation of a classic Brothers Grimm story, which accompanies set and costume designs that the late Sendak created for a 1997 production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, siblings Hansel and Gretel survive abandonment in the woods and an evil witch’s plot to gobble them up before finding their “happily ever after” alongside their father. Prose with the reassuring cadence of an old-timey tale, paired with Sendak’s instantly recognizable artwork, will lull readers before capitalizing on these creators’ knack for injecting darkness into seemingly safe spaces. Gaping faces loom in crevices of rocks and trees, and a gloomy palette of muted greens and ocher amplify the story’s foreboding tone, while King never sugarcoats the peach-skinned children’s peril. Branches with “clutching fingers” hide “the awful enchanted house” of a “child-stealing witch,” all portrayed in an eclectic mix of spot and full-bleed images. Featuring insults that might strike some as harsh (“idiot,” “fool”), the lengthy, dense text may try young readers’ patience, and the often overwhelmingly ominous mood feels more pitched to adults—particularly those familiar with King and Sendak—but an introduction acknowledges grandparents as a likely audience, and nostalgia may prompt leniency over an occasional disconnect between words and art.
Menacing and most likely to appeal to established fans of its co-creators. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780062644695
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
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
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