(3) K-3 Mi Hermosa Familia/My Beautiful Family series. Illustrated by Carlos Vélez. Siblings Luna and Sol help their curandera Nana, who heals neighbors but won’t reveal her secret ingredient. When they catch a cold and overhear Nana singing a healing chant, they think the ingredient is frog. After a failed frog search, Nana reveals the true magic: love. This tale celebrates folk traditions, intergenerational transmission, and grandmotherly wisdom. Illustrations filled with cultural details capture the vibrant rustic setting. The back matter includes a glossary, medicinal plant seek-and-find, an author’s note, and Nana’s soup recipe.

Reviewer: Summer Edward

(2) PS A child's attention is diverted by a carpenter's folding wood ruler. The child happily turns it into a variety of shapes; but when the child fashions a whale, deep water rushes in. Fortunately, the carpenter has (all along) been building a boat. Escape! The wordless spreads are effortless to read: all the illustrative detail is restricted to the materials on the carpenter's bench.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2017

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Grégoire Mabire. A small wolf falls out of a book on Zoe's shelf and evades her pet cat by climbing into books with inhospitable scenes. The wolf re-enters his original book on the wrong page; a dinosaur book is too dangerous; finally, a certain scene with "a little girl dressed in red" is a natural fit. Varied illustrative styles cleverly delineate the different books in this amusing meta outing.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(3) PS "This is NOT a rooster / it is an alarm clock" is illustrated with a rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing on an elephant's back. "This is NOT an elephant / it is a shower" shows the elephant spraying a shower-capped kangaroo. Readers will smile as six additional animals in nursery-soft shapes and colors work until playtime: "This is NOT a BOOK / it is a...PARTY."

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) PS "Who do you want to be like when you grow up?" Various animal students all pick traits of their parents to emulate. Johnny, a yellow bird, doesn't look like his parents (the collage-like illustrations show they're pigs), but he nevertheless wants to "wallow in the mud like mom," etc. This warm celebration of diverse family structures concludes with the students' "family drawings."

Reviewer: Kari Allen

(4) K-3 Lili Wool, an expressive lamb, likes to use her imagination...to the consternation of her herd. She finds a thread of wool and, holding it aloft, dances across the landscape using it in a gymnastics routine, to lasso "bad guys," etc. Unfortunately, the thread strips wool from an annoyed sheep. The slight tale is sharply illustrated in muted colors with simple black lines.

Reviewer: Sheila M. Geraty

(4) 4-6 Illustrated by Greg Paprocki. In this tongue-in-cheek, trivia-packed how-to for the budding superhero, King covers everything from a ranking of the top superpowers to origin stories to silly superpranks. Silly, chatty prose and comics-style line drawings underscore the humor and help break up the rather exhaustive information aimed at superhero-obsessed readers. Timeline. Bib.

Reviewer: David Elzey

(4) K-3 This book follows a girl and her cousin though the city of Beijing on their way to make jiaozi (dumplings) with their grandmother. The text isn't subtle about its agenda: information-sharing trumps storytelling. Pictures of the cousins are stiffly posed; however, the photographs of contemporary Beijing are a visual feast. The text is printed in English and Mandarin. A recipe is appended.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Amy Wummer. Ballet-dancing Tucker is teased at school and even sometimes at home by his uncle Frank (though his mom reassures him, "I love that you love to dance"). When Tucker's drafted for football, his nimbleness helps win the game--and the team signs up for ballet. The book is well meaning but overly earnest. Dancing across the pages, Tucker is a lovable hero. Glos.

Reviewer: Amy Kellman

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Aaron Zenz. This alphabet book explores the fast-paced world of stock car auto racing. Zippy cut-paper illustrations accompany the rhyming text: "P is for Pace Car, Pit Stop, and Pole. / Q is for Qualify--reaching your goal." NASCAR fans will appreciate the authentic terminology while the appended glossary of racing terms will be helpful to readers less familiar with the sport.

Reviewer: Luther B. Clegg

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Dušan Petričić. "A is for atrocious" begins this alphabet text starring mischievous kids. Each page highlights one letter of the alphabet and includes a nonsense sentence featuring as many words as possible beginning with that letter ("A kingdom of kooky kids is called a kindergarten"). Spiky line drawings selectively shaded in green give these devilish children life and add a vintage look.

Reviewer: Lauren Maggio

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Mike Gordon & Carl Gordon. A boy and his six thousand rats tour a big city, causing chaos wherever they go. The thin story is an excuse for teaching conjunctions; every page turn completes the previous page's sentence, with each until, but, and since printed in bold type. Readers will giggle at the exaggerated cartoon-style illustrations--especially the looks on peoples' faces as the rats come marching.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Jim Bradshaw. Despite the subtitle, the grammar lesson here is so subtle that it doesn't intrude on the fun. Hunter and hunted streak past alarmed sheep and goggle-eyed horses, disturb bees and fish, and root birds from their tree, until this chase ends and another begins. Brightly colored double-page spreads humorously capture the dual perspectives of the panicked mouse and the sharp-toothed fox.

Reviewer: Gail Hedges

(4) PS A brave bunny decides to go out and see the world: he (or she) starts by doing rabbitlike things in the forest, then departs from bunny behavior by climbing a tree, hiding with an owl, building a fire, and beating a drum. The simple concept is mucked up by anthropomorphic stunts that don't seem to fit the gentle story, which is enhanced by soothing black-outlined images accented with soft blues and yellows.

Reviewer: Hilary Breed Van Dusen

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Sharon Watts & Sharon Watts. When pampered pet monkey Emily begins wrecking everything in sight, Madame DuBois, her keeper, makes the difficult, if ultimately sound decision, to put her in a zoo. The book has something important to say about letting go, but it takes an awfully long time to say it. The loose, bright images of the chic Madame DuBois and her accessorized monkey are a pleasure.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) PS Illustrated by AnnMarie Infanger. This new edition is a quirky fantasy about a boy whose family will not let him help as they work on fixing up a house in the country. Tony builds his own house, and it is so successful that the family moves into it instead. Readers will applaud Tony's solution to a perennial problem, but the new art, which features characters more stereotypically cute than individual, is not as engaging as the text.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Lloyd Bloom. In this welcome reissue, a young farmer and his bride settle amidst "the hills that roll forever" and plant a plum tree. With the eloquent simplicity of a Shaker hymn, Johnston's words capture the cyclical pattern of a nineteenth-century farming way of life. Bloom's lush palette of verdant green and earth tones wakens all the senses.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc. | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 1988

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Julie Olson. Exuberant Annie McRae thrives on the many compliments she receives from adults. But when everyone is too busy to compliment her, she eventually learns to cheer for herself instead. Western touches in the expressive artwork add dimension to this pleasant tale with an appealing main character and satisfactory, if slight, plot.

Reviewer: CHristine Sarrazin