An excellent rhyming story that shows how seeing more of the world can help individuals realize their own importance.
Two colleagues find a new appreciation for their delivery jobs in this illustrated children’s tale of teddy bears and trains by a writer and toy company founder.
Kody and Dot of 2 Bears Delivery Service handle boxes around the same loop of train tracks every day. But following this route all the time takes its toll, and though they have their work appropriately divided—Kody navigates while Dot drives—they start feeling a bit bored with their occupations. Is what they’re doing really important? One day, on their twisty daily path along the loop, Dot takes a bump too fast, and the train jumps right off the tracks. After a moment of worry—“Where will we go / And how will we ever get home?” Kody asks—Dot convinces Kody that this is their opportunity to change their rhythms and explore new territory. Unconcerned with normal physics, the two bears set off on their train without bothering about tracks, driving across the countryside and making an exciting discovery: their boxes are traveling all over the world on all types of vehicles. Finding a new enthusiasm for their labors, the bears return home, but with a fervent inspiration to travel the globe and add to Kody’s map (“Kody and Dot now see their world / in a much more wonderful way”). With the Green Toys logo on the cover and the train that Dot drives, it’s unsurprising that some of this cuddly cute story feels a bit like a toy tie-in. The packages that the bears transport are never explicitly called toy boxes, but it’s easy to imagine they are, and many of the tale’s vehicles match playthings in the Green Toys catalog. The tie-in nature and improbable train locomotion aside, the story works as a way for two disenchanted bears to discover just how important their labors are—and devise a solution to their daily humdrums. Von Goeben’s (Ballparks, 2004, etc.) rhyming text scans well, though the stanzas are not printed where the normal breaks would be. Yamada’s (The Noisy Garage, 2016, etc.) sweet illustrations border on the saccharine, but young toy lovers should fall for the adorable bear conductors, and preschoolers who love picture books about vehicles should be thrilled with all the different types featured here.
An excellent rhyming story that shows how seeing more of the world can help individuals realize their own importance.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Green Toys
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A spectacular return to a magical world.
Following the events of Impossible Creatures (2024), a devoted Guardian teams up with a brave princess to fight her power-hungry uncle and save the Archipelago’s dragons from a strange new threat.
Jacques the dragon summons Christopher Forrester back to the Archipelago from the human world: Dragons are dying, and no one knows why. Meanwhile, on the island of Dousha, Princess Anya’s grandfather, King Halam, has been murdered, and her father accused—though she knows he’s innocent. When Christopher and Anya take refuge on the islet of Glimt, the Berserker Nighthand helps them see how their twin missions to save the dragons and free Anya’s father are connected. They work together to create an antidote for the poison that’s killing the dragons and to keep Anya and her father safe from her murderous uncle. Meanwhile, Nighthand and Irian, the part-nereid ocean scholar, pursue their own important secret mission. Divided into three parts—“Castle,” “Dragons,” and “Revenge”—and containing elements of fairy tales, fantasy, and Shakespeare, this story continues the storyline established in the series opener, yet because it introduces new characters and obstacles, it could also stand alone. Dark-blond Anya (“five feet tall and all of it claws”) is a match for white-presenting Christopher, who, though he still misses Mal, finds that “it made a difference to have someone to move through the world with again. A friend changed the feel of the universe.” Mackenzie’s delicate, otherworldly art adorns the text.
A spectacular return to a magical world. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593809907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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