A lighthearted and quirky walk through the woods.
Celebrated literary spouses Smith and Laird follow up their debut picture book, The Surprise (2022), with another tale of Maud the spirited, judo-loving guinea pig.
As Maud’s owner, Kit, frets about an upcoming school camping trip, her pets privately agree with her misgivings. Dad reassures her, “It’ll all be over before you know it,” but Maud remembers he said the same thing about an injection at the vet’s office. So she stows away in Kit’s backpack; after all, Kit will surely need a friend. But when Maud arrives at camp, Kit’s nowhere to be found. Perhaps Maud’s the one who needs a pal, and she soon finds one in Harvey the hedgehog, who teaches her all about forest survival. Fox’s endearing cartoon art depicts anthropomorphized, friendly-faced animals: Maud sports her customary martial arts uniform, and both she and Harvey walk upright. Mixing vignettes, panels, and full-page spreads, the illustrations draw clever parallels between Kit’s and Maud’s activities: As Kit and the other kids traverse a rope course, Maud and Harvey walk across a log, and as the campers sit by a roaring bonfire, the animals gather around their own, teeny-tiny fire. Though the text is on the wordy side, it pairs well with the art; the forest facts Harvey imparts and the information on camping easily mesh with the more whimsical elements. Kit is biracial: her mother presents Black, while her father is pale-skinned.
A lighthearted and quirky walk through the woods. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9798217038725
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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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