(2) PS While her father does yard work, Madeleine stands still, arms outstretched. She's pretending to be a tree, "because a tree gets to stay outside all day long!" When Dad agrees to join in the imaginative play ("only for a minute"), a baby owl falls asleep on his shoulder, a robin builds a nest in his hair, a spider spins a web in his armpit, a squirrel slides an acorn into his shirt pocket, and more. Then a kite flies into his face, rain starts to fall, and it gets dark. Dad insists that they go inside, but then the baby owl on his shoulder wakes up. It joins its mother in a real tree, and father and child bond over witnessing this moment in nature. Madeleine's goal has been achieved too: "We got to stay outside all day long!" Agee keeps the compositions and dialogue uncluttered and unfussy ("Dad, you are a very good tree!"), and children will delight in the visual hyperbole--the growing number of creatures who pile on Dad. This entertaining story expresses what children know so well: playing outside can be filled with surprises.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) PS Illustrated by Christian Robinson. This conversation-starting picture book presents a series of questions and invites children to supply the answers. The first spread asks viewers to count the number of animals pictured, with Robinson depicting a creature-filled tree and a bear and elephant at its base. The next spread, featuring a tiger partially concealed by jungle leaves, adds an element of delicious mischief: "How many animals can you not see in this one, because they're hiding from the tiger?" There's much more mischief: someone has just robbed a bank ("which of these ladies" did it?); bandits bury a treasure (and "what would you do if you found it?"); there's a mysterious beast in a bathtub (what kind?); and more. Some questions give simple options, one spread showing three sleeping children with Barnett's text asking which one dreams of peaches. Others are open-ended, making them a good match for creative writing prompts. For instance, a woman stands atop a cliff next to the question: "Who is she waiting for?" Robinson's textured mixed-media collages provide just enough detail and sometimes pose visual questions that the text doesn't even touch on. How, for instance, did the snake get in the tennis shoe pictured on the cover? Even the endpapers are a delight, Robinson turning everyday objects (a banana, a mug) into question marks. This is creative, interactive picture-book fun, without question.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Evan Turk. On her eighth birthday, Maude buries a red tin box under a dogwood tree (only she knows what's inside), making a promise to herself. Decades pass. Maude, now an older woman, remembers the box but not its contents. One afternoon she is "seized with a feeling" and invites her granddaughter on a long drive to her old home. The granddaughter is filled with questions ("what's inside the box?"), and they both wonder if they'll be able to find it. They do indeed, and Maude is overcome with emotions as she explores the box's contents and then shares stories from her childhood on the drive back home. Burgess's (Drawing on Walls, rev. 1/21) detailed text is filled with evocative sensory descriptions: "At the foot of the flowering dogwood, in a soft spot where she once discovered a fallen nest, the earth seemed to whisper, 'Here.'" A vivid coppery-red and brilliant golds dominate Turk's (Hello, Moon, rev. 9/22) palette, and he fills the book with intriguing perspectives and distinctive textures. Burgess's warm intergenerational tale leaves Maude's specific memories, the meaning of each item in the red tin box, and Maude's promise to herself a mystery to readers, thereby inviting them to imagine the contours of her childhood and perhaps even consider what they'd put in their own red tin boxes.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) PS Illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld. In short, punchy sentences, many of them one or two words long, Ferry introduces readers to a persistent rainstorm: "Dreary. Weary. Dim. Grim. Drip. Drop. Nonstop." Lichtenheld, alternating between full-bleed spreads and energetic vignettes that hasten the pace, depicts a town utterly tired of all the rain. Children look out windows in despair, wanting to run and play outdoors, but the rain, falling in driving lines, will not relent. The monochromatic purplish-gray palette captures the pervading sense of gloom: "Nights and days. Always grays." A girl heads outdoors with her pup ("Gotta go--rain or snow") and stops into a curio shop. She finds a battered yellow umbrella, the book's one pop of color. The umbrella disintegrates in the rain as she runs home, but she later discovers that the pieces have bloomed, creating a field of dazzling yellow umbrellas. She and her pup dig them up and distribute them throughout town, the pages now emanating a sunny-bright glow: "Goodbye, dreary. Goodbye, gray." Color and joy return, chasing the clouds away. A pleasing pick-me-up story, rain or shine.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) K-3 Translated by Emilie Robert Wong. Illustrated by Violeta Lopíz. Fontenaille and Lópiz bring readers a deeply affectionate intergenerational story of a six-year-old child and Grandpa Luis. The child admires Luis, a talented gardener who fled war in Spain as a youth and never attended school or learned to read or write. "Dad told me Luis didn't have a chance to be a kid." The grandchild's first-person narration lovingly describes Luis's tattoo-covered arms, his artwork that covers the walls ("Dad says Luis is as good as Henri Rousseau"), his cooking, his guitar-playing, and the idiosyncratic way he speaks: "He says I am 'the apple of his pie,' which means he really likes me." Lópiz's beautifully composed, exquisitely controlled illustrations burst with color, capturing impressions and moments with graceful lines and evocative, layered patterns and textures. There is a particularity to the story and characters that makes this book most memorable and spellbinding.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2023

(2) PS This playful tale about colors and numbers stars one adult cat and nine lively kittens. While they frolic on each spread, the text invites viewers to find the felines with certain markings: "3 cats with stripes"; "4 cats with patches." There are also three cans of paint, and as the adult cat sleeps, the sense of mischief is palpable when the kittens lift the lids off the cans. Paint cans tumble, and red, yellow, and blue paint flow across the spreads. Now there are "5 cats with red spots" and "6 cats with yellow dots." Soon the colors mix to create "orange splotches" and "green splats." By the time the bemused adult wakes up, there are "10 multicolored cats," nine of whom are worn out from their adventures. No worries: the big cat cleans them up. Young children learning to count will delight in the growing chaos on each spread, the expressively rendered kittens, and the proliferation of bright colors at each page-turn. Gravett's nimble linework communicates a frolicsome tone. Viewers will want to head immediately back to page one and start counting again.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Grace Lin. Cold sleet is falling, and the protagonist of this home-and-back-again adventure tale, Alice, is stuck inside, bored. Then she spots a book on the floor and starts to read: "Once upon a time, there was a girl... She went to a place alive with colors, where even the morning dew was warm." "That sounds like our home," says one of the book's characters (a flamingo), who invites the child into the book. She climbs in and spends time with the animal characters. When it starts to rain, she wishes to be elsewhere, and the camels in the desert on the next spread of the book (one she's both inhabiting and holding in her hands) invite her to join them: "Turn the page and come in." And so it goes, the girl on a thrilling journey of the imagination, swimming through a coral reef, floating in space, and much more. At home, Alice has a plush rabbit and rabbit-shaped slippers, but a real (and vigilant) rabbit accompanies her on her journey; readers can seek-and-find it on every spread. The text builds patterns and a pleasing rhythm with repeating sentence structures; children will delight in anticipating what comes next. Lin's lush full-bleed spreads invite readers to take the journey with Alice, whose dress changes color in each environment, making her blend into every one of the worlds. That Alice is an Asian girl says much about the authors' wishes for all children to see themselves in the books they read--in this case, quite literally.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2023

(2) PS "When Max was a kitten, he was the only one." Young Max was born to Gooseberry, both of whom readers of the Provensens' Maple Hill Farm books will recognize. Readers are privy to Max's life during the daylight hours, in which he explores the barnyard, teases other animals, drools over the baby chicks (though he knows better than to bother Goat Dear or Rebel the horse); and leaves squirrel tails for his humans (as the "mighty hunter" he is) in his "room and bed" on the family farm. But as the sun starts to set, "You would not know him. He looks like a tiger. Now...his real life begins." Off slinks Max to mysterious nocturnal escapades. Provensen fans will be thrilled that this "never-before-published picture book," complete with hand-lettering, has seen the light of day. It closes with a note from the couple's daughter, Karen Provensen Mitchell, who recalls growing up with the real-life Max on Maple Hill Farm. Via translucent watercolors, distinctive lines, and their singular style, the Provensens capture the riddles that are cats--and the thrill of being one who roams a family farm.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2023

(1) PS Illustrated by Sydney Smith. This tender story from the author-artist team behind I Talk like a River (rev. 11/20) pays tribute to Scott's Polish grandmother, whom he visited daily as a child. An opening note explains that she "suffered greatly" during World War II and, afterward, lived in a renovated chicken-coop in a Canadian coastal town. Baba, who "didn't have very much food for a long, long time," stockpiles items from her garden and closely watches her grandson eat lest he waste a bite. On the rainy walk to school, Baba looks for worms, collecting them in a jar, so that she can add them to the soil in her own garden. Her communication is limited to gesturing and, by tracing lines on the boy's hand, she conveys the worms' tremendous worth to the soil. Later, Baba moves in with the boy and his parents. In two moving, gently paced, wordless spreads, the boy brings Baba, lying in bed, a simple breakfast, and silently they eat together--before he heads out to find worms for some of Baba's cherry tomato seeds he has planted in a pot. Smith's observational prowess is a perfect match for this story of quiet, contemplative moments of profound meaning, his nuanced and expressive watercolors capturing years of struggle and sorrow on Baba's face--but also the abundant love she feels for her grandson, who still now picks up worms in her honor.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) PS Illustrated by Emilie Gill. Because Hen is determined to do things herself ("I'm not a baby chick anymore!"), she declines invitations from Cow, Horse, and Pig to help her carry a bag of flour to her home, where she plans to bake some bread. Fox sits waiting in the forest's ferns and butters her up when they meet ("You are undoubtedly fabulous at everything you do"), so Hen invites him to join her. But never fear: Gill's detailed illustrations indicate that smart Hen is on to him. The side-eye and scowl she directs at Fox show she won't be fooled. After Fox dramatically lunges at her and her pot of soup, Shaw returns readers to Hen's three friends, who suspect trouble. They race to Hen's intending to save the day but discover that she has everything under control. Hen serves as a sympathetic stand-in for this satisfying story's audience. Gill's fine-lined illustrations rest on a palette of muted earth tones with a vivid copper that brings a visual pop to the pages. There's much playful humor ("Hen appeased me with the peas!" says Fox in the end) in this entertaining take on the classic "Little Red Hen" story.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(1) K-3 This impassioned picture-book call to action for environmental stewardship opens with the image of a contemporary child tending "a little bit of land." After a spread that lays out what the land might have looked like at three different stages in the prehistoric past, we see it as it could have looked with the first humans treading upon it, a time when, following natural disasters such as fire and an ice age, it always found a way to "begin anew." Sudyka's lush spreads burst with a symphony of colors; graceful, swirling lines depict balance, such as a verdant wordless spread with bison, cranes, and other creatures sharing space. When the book shifts to the time when more and more humans move in, they no longer think of the land "except when they wanted to take from it." The palette turns from primarily vibrant greens to the dismal grays of vehicle exhaust. Two visually striking spreads show the damage humans have caused (pollution and the crowding out of flora and fauna) with the first using series of diagonal lines that radiate from the book's bottom gutter, separating the spread into wedge-shaped panels. The panels on the recto appear upside down; the following double-page spread features an inverted full-bleed image of a pollution-clogged city showing how environmental degradation "seemed unstoppable." Images return to right-side-up and the vivid colors reappear when a group of children stop to "look closely, and listen, too," tending the land with care. Back matter touches on the different epochs represented in the story and provides resources for further reading.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) PS Based on Aesop's "The Dog and His Reflection," Tabor's ([cf2[Mel Fell, rev. 3/21) book once again makes smart use of vertical orientation to enhance this story of a puppy interacting with his own reflection in the water. Simon, playing by the pond, finds a bone: "If there was a better bone in all the world, Simon hadn't seen it." Then he spots not only another puppy in the pond but also "a better[cf1 bone." The preschoolers at whom this playful story is aimed will delight in being one up on the main character: it's Simon's reflection he has deemed his antagonist. He challenges the "other dog" (a staring contest, a warning growl) and eventually pounces. After having lost his bone by jumping in the water and still believing his reflection is another creature, Simon takes pity on him: both have lost their bones. When Simon spots another bone in the dirt, he drops it into the water as a gift to his new "friend." Friendly pastel-hued illustrations with white space and loose, energetic lines capture the abundant vigor of a young pup. Subtle design choices enhance the story, such as Tabor's name on the cover appearing as if it's floating in water. The egocentric stage of a child's development is expertly (and adorably) depicted.