A deft account of a diminutive being standing up to a mighty force.
The wind compels a tiny creature from peaceful sleep to embark on blustery adventures.
A tan-skinned, green-hoodied “miniature being,” one of the Mu Ke, or Treelings, cozily slumbers until “quietly, the wind approaches” with whispered entreaties: “Hurry! Get up! Let’s go out for a walk.” When the Treeling is too slow to respond, the wind hurtles its “little tangerine cap” out into the open, forcing the minuscule being to give chase. “Maybe I didn’t want to go on a walk!” the Treeling mutters, but the wind quickly turns into a huge storm, carrying its companion through the mountain forest. The wind awakens hibernating bears, tosses and tangles birds, blows over magical beings, and tumbles boulders. “Come join us for a walk,” the wind coerces, while the Treeling repeatedly attempts to apologize for the ensuing chaos. “STOP!!!” the Treeling finally demands, impressively calming the tempest into a gentle breeze. Chinese artist/author Xiong effectively highlights the natural environment with swirling shades of verdigris. The contrasting orange cap pops off the pages, suggesting its importance to Treeling identity; an older Treeling sports a similar cap as the tiny protagonist. Xiong’s opening note reveals Memories of Xiang Zhou, an ancient Chinese text, as the Treelings’ provenance; third-century BCE poet Song Yu’s inspirational “Wind Poem” is appended. Polyglot Garcia Roberts provides the translation for Xiong’s vivid, sweeping text.
A deft account of a diminutive being standing up to a mighty force. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781962770262
Page Count: 54
Publisher: Elsewhere Editions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A sweet, if oft-told, story.
A plush toy rabbit bonds with a boy and watches him grow into adulthood.
The boy receives the blue bunny for his birthday and immediately becomes attached to it. Unbeknownst to him, the ungendered bunny is sentient; it engages in dialogue with fellow toys, giving readers insight into its thoughts. The bunny's goal is to have grand adventures when the boy grows up and no longer needs its company. The boy spends many years playing imaginatively with the bunny, holding it close during both joyous and sorrowful times and taking it along on family trips. As a young man, he marries, starts a family, and hands over the beloved toy to his toddler-aged child in a crib. The bunny's epiphany—that he does not need to wait for great adventures since all his dreams have already come true in the boy's company—is explicitly stated in the lengthy text, which is in many ways similar to The Velveteen Rabbit (1922). The illustrations, which look hand-painted but were digitally created, are moderately sentimental with an impressionistic dreaminess (one illustration even includes a bunny-shaped cloud in the sky) and a warm glow throughout. The depiction of a teenage male openly displaying his emotions—hugging his beloved childhood toy for example—is refreshing. All human characters present as White expect for one of the boy’s friends who is Black.
A sweet, if oft-told, story. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72825-448-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Deeply familiar but infused with 21st-century smarts; expect cries for repeated reads.
Two acclaimed creators retell a fairy-tale classic.
Employing a conversational style, Barnett offers a fresh and immensely entertaining take on an old story, much as he did with The Three Billy Goats Gruff, illustrated by Jon Klassen (2022). A miller (“a nice enough guy, but he had a big mouth”) encounters the king and, seeking to impress him, falsely claims that his daughter can spin straw into gold. What follows is the classic story, replete with spinning wheels and small men who make clandestine deals with the desperate for their offspring. While never diverging from the original, Barnett nevertheless allows his miller’s daughter, if not a name (on purpose, it turns out), then hobbies like “whittling sticks and catching tadpoles with her bare hands.” This miller’s daughter is still caught in the machinations of the men around her, but Barnett demonstrates that her love of the woods is key to her defeating Rumpelstiltskin. His sly retelling is perfectly complemented by art that at times resembles classical portraiture. Ellis also harkens back to fairy-tale images of yore with both lushly illustrated gouache pictures and small interstitial black-and-white spot art. Characters present white.
Deeply familiar but infused with 21st-century smarts; expect cries for repeated reads. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781338673852
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
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