Latkes and Brisket: There Was A Young Rabbi--A Hannukah Tale by Suzanne Wolfe

THERE WAS A YOUNG RABBI WHO READ THE TORAH.

SHE READ THE TORAH AND LIT THE MENORAH.

But this young rabbi has another vocation, and as all mothers know, it's no vacation!

Yes, this young rabbi is an energetic woman with a husband and two children, and in addition to her duties to her congregation, she also has the job of celebrating the joys of Hanukkah at home! She lights the candles, one each night, on her home menorah, until all eight glow in memory of the little bit of oil which lit the lights for the first Hanukkah. But that's not all...

She fries up the latkes, enough so everyone in the family can have some. And that's not all that the young rabbi cooks up at home.

THERE WAS A YOUNG RABBI WHO MADE A NICE BRISKET.

IT'S KOSHER, OF COURSE, OR SHE WOULDN'T HAVE RISKED IT!

She plays dreidel with the kids, and wins a game, too! So she eats a chocolate gelt; that's what winners get to do!

And when all eight candles shine on the eighth and last night, they all open their gifts by the bright candlelight!

In Suzanne Wolfe's rhyming story, There Was a Young Rabbi: A Hanukkah Tale (/Lerner/Kar-Ben Publishing, 2020), illustrated with zest by artist Jeffery Ebbeler, the energetic young female rabbi presides over the professional holiday practices and the festive family fun as well, in a jolly story about the holiday season. It won't take more than a few lines for savvy primary graders to identify the rhyme scheme of this story as the famous format of the folksong "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly," used so prolifically by author Lucille Colandro's and artist Jared Lee's holiday and seasonal series, such as There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover! (see reviews here). With an unusually early Hanukkah coming up this year, be sure to make room in the holiday readings for this different and clever story.

Says Booklist, "The strong rhyme scheme and repetition in this Hanukkah tale will soon have young listeners chanting along!"

Plie'! Jete'! Boys Dance! by John Robert Allman

SHORTS AND SOCKS AND SHOES ON TIGHT.

YOU'RE SET TO DANCE WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT.

Wiggly boys and giggly girls, the boys in black shorts and white tees and slippers and the girls in bright leotards and white slippers finish suiting up and take their place at the barre to learn ballet.

THEN AS MUSIC STARTS TO PLAY...

PLIE', PLIE', PLIE', PLIE'!

Under the watchful eyes of their ballet master, the boys warm up and then move out to the center of the floor, where they practice their positions from one to five. And then they get to show their styles with a tour jete', a piroutte, and a tour en l' air. Under posters of famous dancers who learned their skills as boys, they marvel at mighty lifts and and try to make their leaps cool and high.

In John Robert Allman's Boys Dance! (American Ballet Theatre) (Doubleday and Company, 2020), boys practice skills that will build muscles and balance that can make them primo ballerinos...

PRINCES, PIRATES, VILLAINS TOO!

SLAY THE MOUSE KING IN A COUP!

... and build strength and balance, speed and control that will serve them well on the basketball or tennis court or on the soccer or baseball field. In their lessons, they also can learn other dance styles--modern, tap, hip-hop, and jazz dance.

Why should girls have all the fun! Author Allman makes ballet look inviting, with boys going through their strenuous paces in the lively and humorous illustrations of artist Luciano Lozane. With an appendix showing young boy dancers in performance costumes and as adults in famous roles, this rhyming picture book puts in a positive plug for the American Ballet Theater for boys who like to make their moves to music to join in. As Kirkus Review puts it, "Boys and ballet—a happy and upbeat combo."

For more boys in ballet fun, share this one with Grace Maccarone's Miss Lina's Ballerinas and the Prince. (See my review here.)

Where There's A Will, There's A Way! Runaway Pumpkins by Teresa Bateman

It's the first field trip of the year. Kids are hustling; teachers are bustling! The bus is here! Children cheer!

WINDOWS FOG AS FACES GRIN!

THE FIELD TRIP'S READY TO BEGIN!
It's down the road and round the bend, and then the visit to the pumpkin patch begins. The class spreads out, each one hoping to find the perfect pumpkin for their own jack o' lantern, the one that could win first prize at the Autumn Fair. But how can they choose when there are so many there?

BUMPY, LUMPY, STRAIGHT OR CURVY. REALLY ROUND OR TOPYSY TURVY!

So many pumpkins! Better be quick. Hurry and scurry, each one must pick!
Finally the bus driver stows each chosen pumpkin away, latched inside the big bins under the bus. The kids thank the farmer and climb aboard, and waving to the pigs watching from their stye, they pull away and head back to school.
Brains are busy; lots of possibilities there! Which one will win in the Autumn Fair?
Silly, scary, ghouly, goofy? Frightful, artsy, simple, spoofy?
But just as the kids wish the bus would go faster, the latches come loose and there is a disaster! Their precious pumpkins roll out with a smash and a crash. Now there are no pumpkins, just seeds, chunks, and pieces. The only pumpkin left is the huge one tied to the roof of the bus. While the bus drives on, midst gloom and doom, people come out to view the scene and begin to clean.

ALL A-TIZZY, THEY TAKE THEM HOME AND THEN ALL GET BUSY!

Back at school, the kids make the best of it, pitching in to make that huge pumpkin--their first group project--good enough to win the prize at the Autumn Fair.
But at the Fair...

SURPRISE! PUMPKIN CUPCAKES, COOKIES, CAKES AND PIES!

And at the Autumn fair, there's plenty to share in Teresa Bateman's latest, Runaway Pumpkins (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2020). Teresa Bateman is the doyenne of rhyming stories, and this making-the-best-of-it tale is a jolly addition to pumpkin-time picture books for primary readers. And then there are plenty more where this one came from! (See more here).

It's Easy! All You Need Is Love by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Bears are known to be a bit grumpy when they emerge from hibernation, and this rumpled bear is no exception. Melting snow is making chilly puddles all around. Bah!

But what's that sound?

It's a happy bluebird whose song seems to call forth the spring itself. Trees begin budding and bright flowers push up out of the muddy fields.

The bluebird perches on Bear's head and offers him a freshly picked flower and then leads him through the landscape.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!

ALL YOU REALLY NEED IS LOVE!

And as Bear and Bird make their way down the road, spring unfolds before them and a joyful throng assembles as the parade progresses to a happy "happening" in the park.

NOWHERE YOU CAN BE

THAT ISN'T WHERE YOU'RE MEANT TO BE!

Altogether, now, everyone:

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED!

In a sweet tribute to fellow-feeling and spring joy, the lyrics to Lennon and McCartney's anthem to love, so familiar to Baby Boomers and Beatles fans, becomes the lively rhyming text to All You Need Is Love, illustrated with great charm and visual humor by noted picture book artist, Mark Rosenthall. Love may not be all we need in these times, but it is what we need for sure, love for life, love for our lovely world, and love for each other. School Library Journal sums it up: "The illustrations are as inspiring as the lyrics, with bright rainbow colors, and lighthearted, animated characters. The diversity of human characters is to be appreciated, and the change of setting as the parade marches on adds interest and intrigue. VERDICT A cultural must-have for all well-rounded library collections."

TIME OUT! Fix That Clock by Kurt Cyrus

Tock, Tick, Clunk!
The clock’s a pile of junk.
Rusty, dusty, moldy, musty.
Tock, Tick, Clunk!

The once splendid town tower clock is telling no time.

The tower is rickety, tippy, and tottery, good mostly for housing bats and mice.

It’s time to take time to fix that clock.

Marching up the ramp
Up we march the fix the clock.
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!

Armed with sledge crowbars and hammers, the three workers repair the broken-down stair.

Swing that hammer, Super Slamer.

Bam! BAM! BAM!

At last the workers take on the most demanding task–-repairing the rust-encrusted clockwork!

Give the gears a yank.

Tock, Tick, CLANK!

And then the newly oiled and polished gears are meshing and the clock is ticking and bonging out the hour, in Kurt Cyrus’ delightfully chiming and rhyming Fix That Clock (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Author Cyrus’s latest is filled with delicious poesy, the rhymes are just right, onamatopoeia abounds in with construction sounds, the ousted animals are re-housed in little homes fashioned from wood scraps, and appropriately, the job is done right at quitting time. Artist Cyrus fills his double-page spreads with charmingly realistic paintings, enlivened by dizzying perspectives, and there are touches of visual humor, as a mouse runs up the overall leg of one worker and with quirky independence, the carpenters cut windows–-square, semi-circular, circular, and triangular--giving the reader plenty of action to peruse on each page.

And all in good time, there she stands, restored, the Queen of Clocks! Altogether an outstanding example of picture book art, this one is must-have for children’s collections, just the thing for young time-telling students' story time.

What To Do? Just Read by Leri Degman

Where do you read? When do you read? Why do you read?

HOORAY! I know how to read on my own!
But sometimes I don't want to do it alone.

You can read on trains; you can read on planes!
You can read on the swings; you can read when it rains.

Sometimes it's boring to read just one way.
It gets so monotonous day after day!

What do you do when there's nothing to do? What to do when there's everything to do?

The lively little readers in Leri Degman's latest, Just Read! (Sterling Children's Book, 2019) read anything, anywhere, with whomever they are with. They read sheet music in a music store, they read secret codes. They read rhyming signs beside the highway, and they read about exotic animals on the subway. They read in the park as they slide down the slide; they read when the family goes out for a ride. Author Leri Degman's jaunty rhymes portray kids reading and what they imagine as they read, and artist Victoria Tentler-Krylev's vivid, bustling illustrations of kids reading everywhere and anywhere show the endless ways to do it. Just do it! Just read!

War of the Sexes! Chicks Rule! by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

The science-nerd boy chicks have posted a sign on their Rocket Club:

NO CHICKS ALLOWED

The girl chicks are more than miffed. They've got tech smarts, too!

Female chicks are motivated to MARCH!

Cool chicks and nerdy chicks
Quiet chicks and wordy chicks.

Biker chicks and rocker chicks,
Science chicks and soccer chicks.

Chicks who draw and chicks who read...
CHICKS WHO FOLLOW AND CHICKS WHO LEAD!

Signs and posters bloom in front of the boys' clubhouses.

GIVE CHICKS A CHANCE!

Girl chicks realize  that carrying signs is not enough for the boy chicks have to get the message. It's time to be proactive! The girl chicks know they have to prove they can get it off the ground. And do they know the way to operate? Yes! Chicks know how to cooperate.

To mount their own space race, each chick must take her place. The chicks pitch in to raise their gantry and build their spacecraft, wing to wing, and....

Chicks of different flocks and feather,
Work to reach the stars together.

Their launch is successful, and it's no surprise that the No. 1 Nerd Boy Chick hastily makes a small change in his Rocket Club's sign:

NO CHICKS ALLOWED

It's the old war of the sexes, a boys against girls story, with some fun play on the word "chick" to mean girl, in Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen's second book in series starring her cute chick kids, Chicks Rule! (Abrams books, 2019). Even Shakespeare had a go with the war of the sexes, and this new one features storytelling with some jolly internally-rhyming couplets and the charming illustrations of Renee Kurilla, whose girl-chick characters are inspired, with surfer chicks and hijabi chicks who join in to do their share of protest marching and rocket constructing with great flare. A fun entry for our times for the primary set during Women's Month.

"I am woman, hear me peep!" quips Kirkus Reviews.

Barden-Quallen's other books include Tyrannosaurus Wrecks!: A Preschool Story, Quackenstein Hatches a Family, (see reviews here) and her popular Purrmaids series.

Line UP! Draw the Line by Kathryn Otoshi

A piece of charcoal in the hands of a small boy becomes the means to adventure.

He first draws a straight line along the ground, and then, growing bold, begins to draw circles and curlicues and circles, as his glee is reflected in the wash of yellow and lilac around him. But in moving left to right, turning around to produce swirls, the charcoal stick flies out of his hand as he backs into---another boy with a drawing stick approaching from page right.

It's a collision! The two boys, reverse images of each other, stare in surprise as the background colors deepen. The second boy picks up the line and trails it above his head like a prize streamer as he runs off page right. The first boy's feet are entangled in the line, and as he falls, he grows angry as the background wash darkens to purple and black.

It's a tug of war! The line breaks.

A crack opens in the ground between the two.

Can the chasm be bridged?

Line is one the primary elements of art, but it also expresses symbolic meaning in Kathryn Otoshi's Draw the Line (Roaring Brook Press, 2017), as a simple line becomes both a division and and then a connection between the two boys who must figure out a way to bridge the break in the line between them.

In this wordless book, artist Otoshi plays with the possible meanings of the line, using color to represent emotion, in a way that young readers will instinctively intuit. A single line tells it all. As Kirkus Reviews says in their starred review, "Otoshi's fluid watercolors are sheer loveliness, surpassed only by her ability to communicate big concepts with no words. A simple, beautiful concept whose reach grows with each rereading."

"Love in Every Stitch" Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton

I recall a box of rags that someone gave us...

There were rags of many colors.

But every pieces was small.

And I didn't have a coat.

It was way down in the fall.

Even the worn hand-me-down britches little Dolly wore to school had patches, but that wasn't unusual back in the Tennessee hills in those days. But in Dolly's big family, one year there was no spare coat to pass down to her.

It was then that her mama turned to her rag box. None of the bits and pieces were big enough to use to make her a coat. But where there's a will, there's a way. Every mountain woman knew how to piece a quilt, and Dolly's mama surely did, too.

Mama sewed the the rags together.

Sewed every piece with love.

She made a coat of many colors

That I was so proud of.

As she sewed, Mama told Dolly the Biblical story of Joseph's many-colored coat, and little Dolly was proud and eager to wear her new coat to school.

But when she arrived at her school in her patchwork coat, she was met with stares and pointing, and even jeers from some of the students, who thought her coat was fit only for a scarecrow. Although Dolly's feelings were hurt, she still loved that coat, made with love.

And out of that memory the grown-up Dolly Parton also made her own "Coat of Many Colors," a famous song about that experience that helped people understand how she felt when she was bullied as a child.

Now I know we had no money

But I was rich as I could be

In my coat of many colors,

My mama made for me.

With the currently little-heard theme that love is worth more than possessions, the words to Parton's song in her just published picture book, Coat of Many Colors (Grosset and Dunlap, 2016), have a message worth hearing. Parton's sweet story, illustrated in a soft, loving pastel palette by Brook Boynton-Hughes, is a good read-aloud about the value of love shown in non-materialist ways. Says Kirkus Reviews, "Tender and heartfelt with a loving message."

Pair this one with Simms Taback's Caldecott-winning Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (Caldecott Medal Book) or Phoebe Gilman's Something From Nothing, both stories of a loving grandfather who turns his ragged blanket into a coat for little Joseph and successively smaller garments as he grows, both stories of how family love is what really keeps us warm in this world.

A Quark of Rhetorical Questions? An Ambush of Tigers: A Wild Gathering of Collective Nouns by Betsy R. Rosenthal

Does an ambush of tigers
quietly creep
past a bed of oysters
that snores in its sleep?

Word lovers delight in coming up with clever names for groups of living things, and many of them are already familiar....

A bevy of beauties? A gaggle of geese? A pride of lions? Sure.

But what about all those lesser-known group names?

In Betsy R. Rosenthal's catalog of collective terms, An Ambush of Tigers: A Wild Gathering of Collective Nouns (Millbrook Picture Books) (Lerner/Millbrook Press, 2015), there are all kinds of names of like things. Some are familiar, like a bed of oysters or a team of oxen. Some are more arcane, such as a a parcel of penguins. Some are quite clever and fittingly comic--an intrusion of icky cockroaches, a stench of stinky skunks, and a lounge of lizards lazing in the sun. Some are simply mystifying: why is a bunch of mallards a flush? Why not a flight or a flotilla? An ambush of tigers fits the hunting style of those big cats, a stand of flamingos fits their famous one-footed stance, and a prickle of porcupines is perfect for those quill-covered critters. But who came up with a bouquet of pheasants? Isn't that supposed to be a brace... or are they a brace only when freshly dispatched by a sport shooter? And a business of flies? Go figure!

Author Betsy R. Rosenthal, ably assisted by artist Jago, has a lot of fun with all of them in her quaint and quirky quatrains with jolly meter and unpredictable but eminently pleasing rhymes, all framed as humorous rhetorical questions.

Does a pack of wolves
load up bags for vacation?
Does a cast of hawks
get a standing ovation?

When a murder of crows
leaves barely a trace,
is a sleuth of bears
hot on the case?

Jago's illustrations--a sleuth of bears with Sherlock-like magnifying glasses and a troop of kangaroos selling Girl Scout cookies--are as whimsical as Rosenthal's verses, shown in atmospheric double-page spreads which entertain and engage young readers. Rosenthal follows up with a scholarly glossary of definitions of the collective terms used in the book.

"This crash course in juxtaposition and imagination should be celebrated with a peal of bells. An inspiring addition to any poetry collection", says School Library Journal in its starred review, and the other reviewers also awarded this one a veritable firmament of stars.

Dogged Handydog: It's Only Stanley by Jon Agee

THE WIMBLEDONS WERE SLEEPING.
IT WAS VERY, VERY LATE.
WHEN WILMA HEARD A SPOOKY SOUND. (HOWOOOO!)
WHICH MADE HER SIT UP STRAIGHT.

"THAT'S VERY ODD," SAID WALTER.
"I DON'T RECOGNIZE THE TONE.
IT'S ONLY STANLEY," WALTER SAID.
"HE'S HOWLING AT THE MOON!"

Stanley is a dog, and dogs do that. So with a shrug and a shake of his head, Walter sends all the Wimbledons back to bed.

Then, even later than before, another Wimbledon comes to report another scary sound.

WENDY HEARD A CLANKY SOUND
BELOW HER BEDROOM FLOOR.

Dutifully, Walter gets up to investigate what's going in in the basement. It's Walter, with a Rube Goldberg array of assorted metal objects which he is connecting to the furnace piping. Walter dispatches little Wendy back to her beddy-bye with a Stanley status report.

"IT'S ONLY STANLEY, FIXING THE OIL TANK."

As it grows even later, as late as it can get, late beyond belief, little Willie, Wanda, and Wylie make the pilgrimage to their parent's room to report more strange sounds and smells, which Walter ascertains are just Stanley adjusting the TV, making some smelly stew in the kitchen, and clearing the bathroom drains. "It's only Stanley," he reports soothingly.

But just as the Wimbledons think they might actually get some sleep, there is a BIG bang, a really big bang. All the Wimbledons are thrown from their beds, even Max the cat.

"I'LL GO AND LOOK," SAID WALTER."I'LL BE BACK VERY SOON!
IT'S ONLY STANLEY," WALTER SAID.WE'RE GOING TO THE...

It's a lift-off and touch-down on... you guessed it, the MOON, as the Wimbledon's tall house, re-engineered by the inventive Stanley, lands, peaked roof embedded in the cratered surface. The bemused, pajama-ed family finally files out to find out what all the noise was really about in Jon Agee's latest absurdist tale, It's Only Stanley(Dial Books, 2015). Agee's predictable rhymes lull his readers as he prepares them for the surprisingly goofy ending in which, tongue-in-cheek, he shows them what Stanley has really been up to--and why on the final double-page spread. It's sheer silliness and typical Agee-style fun, which will have kids going back to trace Stanley's rocket science throughout the story. Says Booklist, in their starred review, "Very strange, and very, very wonderful."

It's a Wrap! Rappy the Raptor by Dan Gutman

"I'M RHYMIN' AND RAPPIN'
ALL OF THE TIME.
I AM TALKIN' WHEN I'M WALKIN'
AND I'M RHYMIN' WHEN I CLIMB.

When he was a babe Rappy fell out of the nest, and the first words he spoke were not like the rest. He comes from a long line of raptors, not rappers, and his alarmed parents whisk him off to the ER for a checkup.

THE DOCTORS LOOKED ME IN THE EYE
AND LOOKED IN MY EAR.
AND I'M NOT ASHAMED TO SAY
THEY LOOKED ME IN THE REAR!

But the prognosis is not severe.

Rappy's rhyming is not physical. It's not even mental. It seems that his rappin' is purely congenital!

Moms and Dads love their kids the way they are, and Rappy's parents soon learn to appreciate parenting the world's first velociraptor rapper, in Dan Gutman's latest, Rappy the Raptor (Harper, 2015). Rappy right away gets a gig at the zoo, where he promptly has his "peeps" rappin' along just like story circle kids will do when they rhyme along with his story. Along with the jivin' Sultan of Silliness Dan Gutman drops in a little humorous exposure to the emergency room experience and an over-lightly lesson in valuing the differences among us, along with the reading skills that go along with rhyming words. Artist Tim Bowers' bright and funny finger-snappin' illustrations keep it happenin' in this one just made-for-read-aloud sessions.

"A cool addition to most collections," says School Library Journal.

For more dinosaurs-gone-modern summer fun, read this one with Chris Gall's new Dinotrux Dig the Beach.

Shuteye Shortfall! Everybody Sleeps (But Not Fred) by Josh Schneider

IN THE JUNGLE, TOUCANS SNOOZE.
ALSO SLOTHS AND COCKATOOS.
IGNORING SNORING STRIPED HYENAS,
MONKIES DREAM THEY'RE BALLERINAS.

BUT NOT FRED.

As pajama-clad Fred brushes his teeth, his bulldog clambers into his bed, and his cat laps through his last wash-up. On his nightstand his ants snooze in their farm. On his bed a toy monkey, monster, and monkey hog Fred's pillow and his plush sheep is dozing, supine, feet in air.

But Fred's a lad who has a long to-do list, one that requires night-time overtime. While his beddy-bye pals get their ZZZs, Fred is loading up his sleepy-time scow, the USS Insomniac, with a bunch of brass band instruments for its nocturnal voyage.

In the jungle, cockatoos snooze on toucan's bills, the sloth seems to be sleeping (but how can you tell?), and somnolent monkeys dream of ballet in their tutus.

Not Fred, though. He practices leaping while the monkeys hoot at his jete'.

Down on the farm stinky hogs snore in rows and the sheep sleep, except for one count-keeping bookkeeper who schleps his antique adding machine to the sheep stall. One toucan seems to have nested with the hens, and a bit of tutu is in sight among the pig pile--until Fred blasts the barn to break the world shouting record.

At sea whales and jellyfish are asleep in the deep and ballet monkey, pig, toucan and sheep snooze in a rubber raft until the USS Insomnia steams into sight. Fred opens his act with the Alpen horn and blasts everyone awake.

Fred moves on.

SCARY THINGS THAT LURK AND SLINK

STOP ALL THAT FOR FORTY WINKS,

LIKE OTHER CREATURES NOT HERE LISTED--

MONSTERS, TOO (IF THEY EXISTED).

But Fred is still up and at 'em, inspecting the monster dormitory for the illusive Sasquatch.

Not even the most soporific of poetry books puts Fred out for the count, even though those farm hens are roosting on the headboard of the bed and one of the ballerina monkeys is sacked out underneath. But where is Fred? Has he succumbed at last to the siren call of sleep?

PLEASE, FOR NOW DON'T MAKE A PEEP.

JUST CLOSE THE BOOK AND LET FRED SLEEP.

Editor's Warning: Although the Library of Congress has classifed Josh Schneider's Everybody Sleeps (But Not Fred) (Houghton Mifflin Clarion Books, 2015) as a "bedtime" book, it's not an instant snooze inducer.

Youngsters will be too busy perusing and pointing out funny stuff on each page to zip through this one before calling lights out. Theodor Seuss Geisel award-winner Scheider's rhyming couplets have their own intrinsic linguistic humor, but his pages are packed with visual jokes for the sharp-eyed, wide-awake reader. Monkey ballet slippers have an opening for that pedal thumb, the accountant sheep wears a green eyeshade, and the smelly hogs' stalls have hooks for their little fir-tree air fresheners to hang on their tails. Jellyfish wear sleeping masks, a stray toucan keeps a low profile hanging upside down along with the monster bats, and Sasquatch's Bigfoot shoes give away his bunk. There are lots of giggles hiding in plain sight among Schneider's jolly ink-and-watercolor illustrations that will keep pages turning backward and forward until readers quietly close the book to keep Fred asleep!

Pair this one with Doreen Cronin's recent bedtime hit, Click, Clack, Peep!

From the Archives: Horton and the Kwuggerbug and Other Lost Stories by Dr. Seuss

HAVE YOU BEEN SLEEPING? YOU'VE NOT HEARD THE WORD?

LOST STORIES BY GEISEL ARE HERE TO BE HEARD!

From out of the past (well, from the dusty shelves of some library's periodical room, perhaps) come four stories published, not in one of those familiar Dr. Seuss picture books, but from the pages of Redbook magazine, stories in which we meet some old friends in their proto-personalities and in which we can see how Theodor Seuss Geisel was beginning to form his illustrative and storytelling style.

In Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories (Random House, 2014), we meet one of Dr. Seuss's most beloved characters, Horton the elephant, of Horton Hatches the Egg and Horton Hears A Who! renown. In this early Horton tale, the guileless and virtuous Horton meets up with one of Geisel's stock characters, the con man, this time in the person of the Kwuggerbug, who knows a patsy when he sees one. The Kwuggerbug is on a mission to retrieve the fabled delight, the Beezelnut, apparently found on a single tree on a faraway unscaled mountain peak. The Kwuggerbug promises Horton half the haul if he'll provide the, er, transportation.

"IT'S A SWEET DEAL YOU CAN'T REFUSE!" TOUTS THE KWUGGERBUG.

The deal is done, and the poor trusting elephant is the chosen beast of burden for this quest, swimming the snug and dry Kwuggerbug across crocodile-crowded lakes, while Horton fears for his life. But Horton is nothing if not the soul of integrity.

"HMMM," MUSES HORTON. "WHAT HE SAYS IS QUITE TRUE.
A DEAL IS A DEAL. I MUST SEE THIS THROUGH."

Horton "swam and he swam, and he swum and he swum" until at last he climbs out of the lake and the two start their ascent to the peak of the mountain, where a deadly crevasse separates them from the fruitful Beezelnut trees branches. It's quite a stretch for poor Horton, as he extends his trunk to the limit, with the Kwuggerbug at the tip stretched toward the beezelnuts bedecking the limb. But of course the con man has a trick up his carapace that leaves poor Horton with no delicious kernels, just the other half of the nuts--the shells--up his trunk.

But as usual, Horton's faithfulness to his promise is rewarded, in a perfect little Suessian cautionary tale that foreshadows Horton's coming devotion to the egg he promises to guard for lazy Maisie.

Three other stories follow, one of the imaginative Marco from And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street fame, concocting an embellished version of his tardy walk to school in "Marco Comes Late," and that other crooked wheeler-dealer, the Grinch, in "Hoobub and the Grinch." The fourth story, "How Officer Pat Saved the Town," features a new character whose diligence to serve and protect his town conflates a gnat idly circling the head of Thomas the Cat at the corner of Mulberry Street into a chain of events that could become a national disaster.

This new collection of "lost" Geisel tales is pure Dr. Seuss, with his characteristic timeless style of illustration and his trademark versification intact even in his early career. To this new edition  of tales all we can do is to join Horton in saying "SWEET!"

Joining the previous collection of previously unpublished stories by that American master, Theodor Seuss Geisel, The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories (Classic Seuss) (Random House, 2011) (see review here). restored to us by Seuss scholar, Charles D. Cohen, here's hoping there is still more subterranean Seuss waiting to be resurrected.

ARE THERE MORE MASTERPIECES WE ARE YET TO BE KNOWIN'?

LET US HOPE CHARLES D. COHEN KEEPS GOIN' AND GOIN'!

Hear Life Murmur or See It Glisten! Some Bugs by Angela DiTerlizzi

SOME BUGS BUILD

SOME BUGS MAKE

SOME BUGS HUNT

AND SOME BUGS TAKE.

It's a jungle out there!

Paper wasps build light, strong, homey hives. Some spiders make webs, and jumping spiders hunt. And columns of ants take whatever they want back home with them.

Grasshoppers glide, and leaf hoppers hide. Spiders bite, and Hercules bugs fight, locking horns in battle. Caterpillars crawl, while a sow bug rolls into a ball.

And just where can all this action be found?

..KNEEL DOWN CLOSE.

LOOK VERY HARD,

AND FIND SOME BUGS

IN YOUR BACKYARD.

How to identify all these busy bugs? Angela di Terlizzi's Some Bugs (Beach Lane Books, 2014) offers all of these creepy, crawly, flitting critters, along with an appendix, What's That Bug? with thumbnail drawings and names and information about her cast of characters--thrips, nymphs, earwigs and all. But DiTerlizzi's jolly verses almost take a back seat to the absolutely cutest bugs in non-fiction picture book land, created by artist Brendan Wenzel in fabulous design and colors that are fascinating to follow from page to page. Superstar illustrator-author Eric Carle calls this one "a delightful combination of pictures and words," and Publishers Weekly stars it and says, "Readers will feel transported to a summer day, when the air is musical and life is literally buzzing."

Here, Kitty: Tabby McTat, the Musical Cat by Julia Donaldson

"Me, you, and the old guitar, how perfectly, perfectly happy we are.

MEEE-EW and the old guitar, how PURRRR-fectly happy we are."

It's a purr-fect blendship, the partnership of street busker Fred and his cat, Tabby McTat, a gray striper with a voice that can really belt it out. Fred and his guitar are a familiar sight on the downtown corners of his hometown, playing and singing, with Tabby's accompanying cat-calls, for the entertainment of passers by.

But cats will be cats, and Tabby has times when he just has to roam.  One day while he's prowling the neighborhood, Fred's beat-up tip hat is swiped, and in the pursuit, he falls and breaks a leg. It's off to the hospital for the old busker, and when McTat returns to their favorite corner, there's no sign of Fred or his guitar. Tabby searches sadly up and down the town to no avail. Without Fred to feed him, the busker's cat has no cat food, and poor Tabby grows thin and lonely.

Then fortune finds him--in the form of a warm-hearted lady cat named Sock who takes him home with her to a cat-loving couple, Prunella and Pat,  and McTat finds a home. Nature takes it course, and in due time, there are kittens! Tabby becomes a sleek, well-fed pet and is busy helping tutor their brood of capricous kitties.

But McTat never forgets Fred, and one day he sets forth on a missing person search. A brass band has made their old corner their permanent gig, and Tabby is forced to widen his investigation, followed stealthily by his adventurous son, Samuel Sprat. Tabby finally finds Fred at his new, solo venue, and the two have a joyful reunion, but Tabby knows that his place is back home with Sock, Pat, and Prunella. But then, a look-alike musical cat appears, ready to sit in with Fred:

Then from a window sprang Samuel Sprat.
"Oh, please let ME be the busker's cat!"

No one tells stories in rhyme better than Julia Donaldson, and for this tabby tale she joins forces with her old partner, illustrator Axel Scheffler to provide the cute kitties and homey cityscape, in her Tabby McTat, the Musical Cat (Levine/Scholastic, 2012) a kitty tale which is truly the cat's meow.

Monster Love: I Loathe You by David Slonim

Little Monster said, "I loathe you."

"I loathe you, too," said Big Monster.

"How much?" asked Little Monster sheepishly.

"Mosquite bites? I hate them, YES!

But next to YOU, I loathe them less!" smiled Big Monster.

It's a case of one-upmanship for Big Monster and his little orange offspring, as they try to top each other in a loathing match. Little Monster scratches his head as he tries to think of a way to top his dad.

"I loathe you more than what the cat dragged in,
With what the dog threw up thrown in!"

It looks like this match is going to end with Loathe All as the score, when Little Monster has a disconcerting thought. What if he can't keep up the pace? What if he just can't be that bad every single day?

"What if ... I should just obey?"

With his brand-new I Loathe You (Aladdin/Simon & Schuster, 2012), author-illustrator David Slonim manages to poke gentle fun at the sometimes shameless smarm-mongering writers of all those see-how-much-I-love-you books while coming down to the same all-too-true theme, that parents love their own kids no matter what, just...because!

His big green daddy Monster and lovably orange Little Monster are everything a bedtime father and son monster duo should be, and his rhyming monster trash talk tale will tease out the titters and giggles from any primary crowd. As Publishers Weekly puts it with wit and wisdom, "Even as Slonim studiously avoids all things saccharine, readers will recognize the affection between the two characters and enjoy poring over the comically unpleasant details in Slonim's labor of loathe."

Tasty Twist of the Tongue: I Know a Librarian Who Chewed on A Word by Laurie Lazzaro Knowlton

I KNOW A LIBRARIAN WHO CHEWED ON A WORD.

SHE PRACTICALLY PURRED WHEN SHE ATE THAT WORD.

HOW ABSURD!

Well, of course. The kids' section is all agog at this event, and as Miss Devine then chomps her way through that book about Captain Hook, the children look around and gather in disbelief.

With Peter Pan and company under her belt, this amazing omnivorous reader in a bun looks around for more fodder and her eyes fall upon a chair, a reading table, a bookcart... and that's not all.

I KNOW A LIBRARIAN WHO SAVORED A SHELF.

WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT SHE COULD EAT IT HERSELF!

It had to happen. After all those "I Know an Old Lady..." stories, someone finally got around to a librarian as the subject of an ingestion (or indigestion) saga. Laurie Knowlton's I Know a Librarian Who Chewed on a Word (Pelican Publishing, 2012) takes on the task of tailoring this cumulative tale premise to a library setting, and the result is... well, intriguing and yet a bit "upsetting."

Granted, author Lucille Colandro, who fairly has a franchise on this format, has come up with many a seasonal treat (see her autumnal tale, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves!), using the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the folk song "I know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." Many noteworthy takeoffs abound, some more tasty than others, but Knowlton's stereotypical librarian's choice of chewables is a bit, so to speak, hard to swallow and harder still to stomach. Unlike Colandro's old lady, who swallows some snow and eventually produces a fully adorned snowman, what this librarian er, "comes up with" is the word "READ," a worthy word, no doubt, but one unlikely to follow all that ingesting of library paraphernalia. Those hungry for a real attention-getter of a library or book week readaloud may find this book a zesty addition to the fare, but for most, this one is strictly a matter of personal taste.