A gleeful holiday caper.
Boynton brings the brio to another celebratory Christmas chorus.
Clad in pastel onesies, seven long-eared rabbit siblings bearing gifts ferry a fir while a lone bunny, who narrates, patiently waits. As the solitary youngster explains to the parental rabbits decorating the tree, “I just want to dance with Santa Claus!” Sure, Santa’s busy, but he’s also “oh so jolly!” so the swing-loving speaker suggests decking the halls “with Buddy Holly.” Radically rejecting commercialism, the small rabbit offers to make a deal: “You can keep all the toys” in exchange for a brief dance with the big guy in red. “It’s not about presents”; it’s about belief—and that faith is joyously rewarded when the sleepless bunny hears a “KUH-THOMPP” from the fireplace. Tan-skinned Santa emerges and issues the all-important invitation. They twirl and jive (a score is provided) for just a moment, but it’s enough. After they bid each other a “Merry Christmas,” the bedded-down bunny cherishes the gift of an enduring memory. The verse comes from a song written for the author’s 2024 Cows and Holly album. Text that has a hand-printed feel alternates with large, colorful serif fonts, potentially aiding beginning readers, while spare but spot-on details in careful compositions provide Boynton’s perennial pictorial panache. No pigs, hippos, or chickens get a look-in, but the bunny’s bedspread is patterned in prancing parallel reindeer.
A gleeful holiday caper. (Picture book. 1-5)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780316593694
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come.
Little Blue Truck and his pal Toad meet friends old and new on a springtime drive through the country.
This lift-the-flap, interactive entry in the popular Little Blue Truck series lacks the narrative strength and valuable life lessons of the original Little Blue Truck (2008) and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (2009). Both of those books, published for preschoolers rather than toddlers, featured rich storylines, dramatic, kinetic illustrations, and simple but valuable life lessons—the folly of taking oneself too seriously, the importance of friends, and the virtue of taking turns, for example. At about half the length and with half as much text as the aforementioned titles, this volume is a much quicker read. Less a story than a vernal celebration, the book depicts a bucolic drive through farmland and encounters with various animals and their young along the way. Beautifully rendered two-page tableaux teem with butterflies, blossoms, and vibrant pastel, springtime colors. Little Blue greets a sheep standing in the door of a barn: “Yoo-hoo, Sheep! / Beep-beep! / What’s new?” Folding back the durable, card-stock flap reveals the barn’s interior and an adorable set of twin lambs. Encounters with a duck and nine ducklings, a cow with a calf, a pig with 10 (!) piglets, a family of bunnies, and a chicken with a freshly hatched chick provide ample opportunity for counting and vocabulary work.
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-544-93809-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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