Nature tells good stories if we only get outside and look around.
When a child’s mother is too busy for stories, he follows some tracks in the snow and makes up his own.
Milo’s angry face as he stomps out the door speaks volumes about his disappointment. But it isn’t long before he spies a mouse’s tracks under the birdfeeder and begins a journey of discovery. At the winterberry bush, Milo observes that all the red berries are gone and finds a single feather; “What had happened here?” A page turn allows readers time to guess: A flock of cedar waxwings (identified on the endpapers along with tracks and a few animals that readers will have to look very closely to find) flies over the tiny mouse, a single red berry falling to the ground. This pattern repeats, with Milo finding fallen hemlock branches (porcupines), clods of dirt (grazing deer), a smooth trail to the creek (otters), and wing prints in the snow (a narrow miss with a red-tailed hawk). The call of “Dinner time!” has Milo following the trail back to a hole in the snow by his house; a cutaway view shows a second mouse waiting under the woodpile. As Milo lays his treasures—a feather, an acorn, a hemlock branch, and a fish skeleton—on the table, he declines his mother’s offer of stories: He’s got one to tell instead. Both have pale skin and straight, dark hair. Pair with some children’s nature guidebooks to ignite imaginations. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at 30.1% of actual size.)
Nature tells good stories if we only get outside and look around. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4099-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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