It Takes All Kinds! Box Meets Circle by Aaron Hartline

"Hello! I am Circle!

We should do something together.

Let's JUMP!

Easy for him to say! Circle is sunny and bouncy, and jumping is no trick for him. He boing-boings all around his new acquaintance, BOX.

That's just the way he ROLLS!

BOX, on the other hand, brings a lot of angles to the situation--lots of them, actually, if you're counting. But when he tries jumping, he falls flat! OUCH!

So BOX points out that he's got plenty of potential for sitting. He has six surfaces to sit on. And, Hey! SITTING can be fun, too!

"SUNTANNING! PLAYING GAMES!

DOING HOMEWORK!(ER, NEVER MIND!)

Circle gives it a try. He fails. No matter how he comes down, he can't stay put! So he gives the situation some study, and gets an idea.

He tries sitting ON BOX. BOX IS a good platform for jumping!

Where there's a will there's a way, and BOX and Circle find a way to play after all, in Aaron Hartline's simple little fable of resolving differences, Box Meets Circle: Pixar Animation Studios Artist Showcase (Disney Pixar Studios, 2018). Disney artist Aaron Hartline shows that he can create a character with only a few minimalist (but expressive) lines, another odd couple of friends who make a way to be bridge the gap.

Pair this one with Morag Hood's Carrot and Pea: An Unlikely Friendship (review here) or Laura Vaccaro's Dog and Bear: Two's Company (Dog and Bear Series). (review here).

Peace On Earth? Green Lizards and Red Rectangles by Steve Anthony

THE GREEN LIZARDS AND THE RED RECTANGLES WERE AT WAR!

On the surface it would seem that the Green Lizards and the Red Rectangles have nothing in common. Besides the fact that they sport colors that are opposites on the color wheel, lizards are flesh-and-blood animals and rectangles are, well, basically a concept created to designate a plane figure with four sides and four right angles.

So, in what universe are they mortal enemies?

Don't ask! (It's a story, remember!)

The first round looks like it's going to go the the Green Lizards. They speedily line up the Red Rectangles in a long row like dominos and give the first one a push.The upright Red Rectangles FALL to the Green Lizard hordes, right?

Well, they fall, all right, but having curled themselves around behind the Lizards, they fall and fall until they smite the Green Lizards from their rear.

Red Rectangles 1, Green Lizards 0

Now the Greens are really mad? Game on!

It's all-out war, with a cast of thousands! Might does make right. Right? They smite with all their might ...

UNTIL THEY COULD FIGHT NO MORE!

At last the smallest rectangle declares that enough is enough, and the two groups decide to make a truce! In fact, they find the perfect way to live together! The Red Rectangles form an apartment building with windows for each Green Lizard family. Game over!

But in Steve Anthony's brand-new Green Lizards vs. Red Rectangles (Scholastic Press, 2015), the two warring entities miss THE ONE BIG THING they have in common!

CHRISTMAS COLORS!

Yes, in this latest story by Britain's outstanding new picture book author, there's a subliminal seasonal message here of peace on earth and goodwill to men in this little picture book of war and peace, illustrated in Anthony's understated style with thin black pen-and-ink drawings in red and green in witty double-page spreads of silly martial maneuvers that will have small children giggling, there is perhaps a subliminal lesson that it's better to cooperate than to fight just for the heck of it! Deck the halls with green and red in this certainly different Christmas saga.

Steve Anthony's other notable books are Please, Mr. Panda and Betty Goes Bananas (see reviews here)