Reviews
School Library Journal - Grandma's Christmas Wish
Like the author’s previous Grandma Loves You (Sleeping Bear, 2013), this picture book is a love letter from a grandmother rabbit to her young bunny grandchild. Simple rhyming text (“You fill up my heart/with holiday cheer./I love you, my love,/my snowflake, my dear”) addressed to the… View →
School Library Journal - The Nutcracker's Night Before Christmas
The night before the Christmas day performance of The Nutcracker, disaster strikes. The programs are misprinted. Costumes are torn. The stagehands get sick. Fortunately, Santa and his elves are on hand to save the day. Told in the familiar anapestic tetrameter of Clement Moore’s “Twas… View →
School Library Journal - The Little Kids' Table
Food fights, chewing with one’s mouth open, elbows on the table: all common sights at the kids’ table. Just in time for the holiday season, this rhyming story brings readers of all ages to the fun table where the food is good and the company is better. Though some of the rhymes and… View →
Booklist - Asking Questions about How the News Is Created
This title in the Asking Questions about Media series focuses on four areas in news reporting: how headlines are chosen, how news companies grab readers’ attention, how and why readers interpret news differently, and bias in news reporting. Within each topic, the author introduces… View →
Booklist - The Science of a Triple Axel
The triple axel is one of the most difficult figure skating moves to master, and this installment in the Full-Speed Sports series highlights the feat, from its beginnings in the nineteenth century to its technologically advanced future. Though the title promises science, the author only… View →
Booklist - Discover Jellyfish
This new Splash! series title, geared toward early independent readers, provides an accessible, general introduction to jellyfish in a slim format. Three short chapters highlight jellyfish characteristics or behaviors, such as their anatomy, how they swim, and the wide range of their… View →
Kirkus Reviews - Grandma's Nursery Rhymes: Old MacDonald
The American classic is presented with some cuddly illustrations. The nursery song “Old MacDonald” is known to millions young and old, and this board book does it justice, or at least one stanza of it. Illustrator Brown brings to it the same warmth she used in her… View →
Donovan's Literary Services - Love from a Star
Katherine Cutchin Gazzetta’s picture book rhyming story Love From a Star (9781585369508, $14.99) will appeal to a wide age range and provides a simple, warm, religious account as it tells of a shining star that reminds a bear and a bunny that they are loved and never alone, because View →
School Library Journal - Sleepy Snoozy Cozy Coozy
The rhythmic poetry of this selection will have children asking for more as they learn about the sleeping habits of various North American animals, including eagles, moles, moose, alligators, and beavers. The expository text that accompanies each spread provides enough content to satisfy View →
Kirkus Reviews - The Nutcracker's Night Before Christmas
A Christmas Eve performance of The Nutcracker ballet runs amok with multiple mishaps but is saved in the nick of time by the arrival on set of Santa Claus and his elves. The familiar rhyme and rhythm of “The Night Before Christmas” serves as the structure for this clever… View →
Kirkus Reviews - Grandma's Christmas Wish
A gray grandma bunny expresses her love for her little bunny grandbaby in this sweetly sentimental sequel to Grandma Loves You! (2013). The short, gracefully rhyming text is written in first person from the grandma’s point of view, stating her love for her grandchild in different… View →
Kirkus Reviews - Frog and Friends Celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve
The stories are quietly entertaining and cleverly humorous with solid plots, subtle lessons, and a cozy sense of community among the group of friends. Bunting’s polished prose is several levels above most early readers, particularly in Frog’s calm leadership and in the… View →
School Library Journal - Leopold the Lion
Jack and Ella discover a lion doing somersaults on their backyard trampoline and want to keep him. While the siblings easily sneak the wild feline past their distracted parents, their grandpa knowingly quips, “Doesn’t look like an indoor cat to me.” After Leopold is fed a misguided diet… View →
School Library Journal - The Legend of the Beaver's Tail
This retelling of an Ojibwe legend successfully illustrates a moral and explains an important natural concept, while still being an enjoyable read. The story tells how Beaver once had a fluffy, soft tail that made him so prideful he drove away his friends. When a tree lands on his tail… View →
Kirkus Reviews - Leopold the Lion
Keeping a lion as a pet is never easy. Jack and Ella find a lion in their backyard, a lion that can perform backflips and somersaults on the trampoline! They, of course, want to keep him. Sneaking him by their parents is simple (they are busy, and the role reversal portrayed in their… View →
School Library Journal - Tallulah: Mermaid of the Great Lakes
A group of young mermaids is given instruction on searching for a personal gemstone to enhance their tail colors and deign magical powers that allow them to assist mariners and create “enchanting melodies.” Platinum haired Tallulah (her name is Native American for “leaping water”) lacks… View →
School Library Journal - Papa's Backpack
Papa’s Backpack begins with a thoughtful dedication to military families but becomes a much more universal allegory for separation by employing the simple symbolism of a child riding piggyback. Carroll’s use of spare and emotional language and earthy illustrations that play on contrasts… View →
Booklist - Papa's Backpack
A young bear wishes it could travel along in its father’s backpack when Papa has to “go away for awhile.” The cub understands that Papa is a soldier and that he leaves in order to protect the cub. Maintaining a child’s perspective, the little bear expresses its sadness, imagines what the View →
Booklist - Promise
The town of Promise is a tight-knit one, but 11-year-old Kaden has always been on the outside, with only a half-tame raven for a friend. He and his strict grandmother live simply just outside the town limits and keep to themselves, barely acknowledging their old family shame: Kaden’s… View →
Kirkus Reviews - The Little Kids' Table
The little-kids’ table is where the fun is. Duh! Grown-ups can keep their fancy-schmancy dishes and the icky green stuff they put on them. At this celebration of the family meal divided into adult and kid tables, much of the charm resides in Riehle’s unselfconscious… View →