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FULL CIRCLE

CREATION, MIGRATION, AND COMING HOME

Readers will want to return to this gentle, effective account.

Boxer brings her storytelling prowess to bear on the animal world.

The author provides an easy-to-understand account of the cycle that brings some animals back to their birthplaces to breed, while also drawing parallels with human lives. Spread by spread, she describes egg laying, birth, and migration among salmon, puffins, bluefin tuna, and sea turtles. Mineker’s expressive illustrations depict the animals in appropriate landscapes. Most spreads also include an expectant human couple preparing for the birth of their baby. As the animals grow, so does the human infant. A young puffin “hobbles along the rocky cliff” before its first flight; the baby takes those first few tentative steps. As a baby bluefin tuna learns to swim fast to avoid orcas, the human child figures out how to balance on a bicycle. When the salmon begins its journey back home to mate and lay eggs, the child, now all grown up, is shown between two proud parents, wearing a graduation gown and displaying a diploma. Finally, after all four animals return home to lay eggs, the young adult comes back, holding a new baby as the gray-haired parents look on proudly. In the informative text, repetitive phrases detail each stage, enhancing the point that natal homing—animals’ ability to find their way back to their birthplace—is something many creatures share. One of the human parents and the child are brown-skinned; the other parent is lighter-skinned.

Readers will want to return to this gentle, effective account. (author’s note, further information) (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: July 1, 2024

ISBN: 9781534112810

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024

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THE LEAF THIEF

A hilarious autumnal comedy of errors.

A confused squirrel overreacts to the falling autumn leaves.

Relaxing on a tree branch, Squirrel admires the red, gold, and orange leaves. Suddenly Squirrel screams, “One of my leaves is…MISSING!” Searching for the leaf, Squirrel tells Bird, “Someone stole my leaf!” Spying Mouse sailing in a leaf boat, Squirrel asks if Mouse stole the leaf. Mouse calmly replies in the negative. Bird reminds Squirrel it’s “perfectly normal to lose a leaf or two at this time of year.” Next morning Squirrel panics again, shrieking, “MORE LEAVES HAVE BEEN STOLEN!” Noticing Woodpecker arranging colorful leaves, Squirrel queries, “Are those my leaves?” Woodpecker tells Squirrel, “No.” Again, Bird assures Squirrel that no one’s taking the leaves and that the same thing happened last year, then encourages Squirrel to relax. Too wired to relax despite some yoga and a bath, the next day Squirrel cries “DISASTER” at the sight of bare branches. Frantic now, Squirrel becomes suspicious upon discovering Bird decorating with multicolored leaves. Is Bird the culprit? In response, Bird shows Squirrel the real Leaf Thief: the wind. Squirrel’s wildly dramatic, misguided, and hyperpossessive reaction to a routine seasonal event becomes a rib-tickling farce through clever use of varying type sizes and weights emphasizing his absurd verbal pronouncements as well as exaggerated, comic facial expressions and body language. Bold colors, arresting perspectives, and intense close-ups enhance Squirrel’s histrionics. Endnotes explain the science behind the phenomenon.

A hilarious autumnal comedy of errors. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-7282-3520-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021

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PETE THE CAT'S 12 GROOVY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

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

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