Reviews
School Library Journal - Hardscrabble
Hardscrabble Gr 4-6– In the early 1900s, the Martins move to Colorado, where Father plans to earn free land by farming government acreage for five years. Twelve-year-old Belle and her family endure a series of harrowing events: baby Sage survives an encounter with a… View »
Booklist - Pippa and Percival, Pancake and Poppy: Four Peppy Puppies
This tremendously fun read-aloud centers on four puppies who meet each other, one at a time. It beings with Poppy, a spaniel who digs under a fence until she finds a sheepdog, Pancake. They play until they happen up Percival, a dachshund. This merry group then comes across Pippa, a poodle… View »
Kirkus Reviews – Good Night, Forest
Another riff on Goodnight Moon, this one is set in a forest. The opening rhyme sets the scene. “Good morning, forest. / Rise and shine! / Good morning, maple, / Oak and pine.” The text welcomes, in turn, an assemblage of forest flora, fauna, and landscape elements to a new day: deer, bird… View »
Booklist - Hu Wan and the Sleeping Dragon
In 1572, Hu Wan works with his grandfather in their vegetable garden near the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. Their specialty is growing gourds, which are shaped into useful kitchen utensils such as bowls and large spoons to be sold at their village market. Each spring, as the gourds… View »
School Library Journal - May I Come In?
PreS-Gr 1–Afraid to be home alone during a storm, Raccoon sets out to find a friend to stay with. Turns out that the homes of Possum, Quail, and Woodchuck are too small to share. Cold and dejected, Raccoon makes one last stop at Rabbit’s house where he is certain that the large rabbit… View »
School Library Journal - Be a Good Dragon
PreS-Gr 2–When Enzo the dragon gets sick, nothing but trouble follows him. Unable to stave off his accidental attacks of fire-breathing sneezes, the neighborhood wizard tricks the dragon into getting some sleep and getting rid of his cold. Cyrus’s rhyming text is consistent in its rhythm… View »
Booklist - An Extraordinary Ordinary Moth
A humble gray moth opens the story, comparing itself to more notable species. Not as large as the Atlas moth or as cool as the spider moth, it sees itself as ordinary. Meanwhile, a boy is delighted to discover the moth. His little sister reacts differently, calling it dusty and gray, but… View »
Publishers Weekly - Dirty Birdies
Part counting book, part tribute to messy good times, Sattler’s exuberant board book introduces five goofy-looking, none-too-clean birds. A long-legged, polka-dotted bird can’t resist a muddy puddle; it then heads indoors where a tiny green duck is going wild with purple paint (“1 dirty… View »
Publishers Weekly - Mela and the Elephant
Phumiruk (Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines) takes readers to the country of her birth in an instructive contemporary fable about kindess, set in a village in Northern Thailand. A girl named Mela sets off to explore the nearby banks of the Ping River, refusing to bring along her… View »
Kirkus Reviews - Hardscrabble
A close-knit family endures the rough life of farming in Colorado in the early 20th century. Hail, snow, locusts, sickness, death—the list of setbacks encountered by the Martin family as they try to earn their homestead by farming the dry ground of Colorado is a long one. But they can… View »