(3) K-3 Illustrated by Dušan Petričić. Under the direction of a human conductor, a menagerie demonstrates seven musical terms such as allegro and dolce. Each term is introduced on a mostly white double-page spread featuring just the word and the (white, male) conductor gesturing appropriately. The following spread is composed (ha!) of minimal text ("Gently gliding, / slipping, sliding" for glissando) and a selection of animals (penguins, an alligator, otters, snakes, and more) wearing little bow ties and energetically displaying corresponding movement. Together, Heidbreder's euphonious text and Petričić's dynamic illustrations offer bravura performances on every page. A pronunciation guide/glossary is included at book's end.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn

(3) 1-3 Illustrated by Madeline Kloepper. Playful verse follows two unnamed children and their animal companions through a halcyon summer on their grandparents' farm. The story--based on Heidbreder's childhood experiences with his sister and grandparents (per the author's note)--has a sweetly nostalgic feel, as do the textural gray and gold spot illustrations. Alliteration, repetition, sound words, and rhyme make the poems perfect for reading aloud.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(4) PS Illustrated by Qin Leng. "Day's left the stage. / Night's in the wings." A small town's children, depicted tenderly but not sentimentally, take to their windows to observe a summer evening's pageantry: e.g., "Fireflies' glint-glints / sparkle the scene / earth-stars glimmering / a shimmering green." This thought-coaxing book-length poem features a growing-list-of-sounds refrain in a cursive that can strain the eyes at times.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Rae Maté. The Crocs are hard at work...sort of. Each gag spotlights crocodiles doing a job ("Crocs guarantee they'll never fail, / delivering each piece of mail") and then abdicating ("And, to make their work more fun... / Crocs hide the mail from everyone!"). Each punch line will surprise and please readers. Bold, brushstroke-heavy art celebrates the harmless misbehavior.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Illustrated by John Martz. "Black and bittern was night, / that Halloween night, / when skul-a-mug-mugs / spled out skellety fright." In nonsense verse that's part Dr. Seuss, part Lewis Carroll, Heidbreder describes how a mob of invading skeletons are vanquished by the town's child trick-or-treaters. Cartoony illustrations capture the night's events capably, but it's difficult to find the sense in the text's nonsense.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Marc Mongeau. In the first half of these sixteen poems, parents attempt to rouse their sleepy children with playful threats of monsters and eyeball bugs. In the second half, it's the parents who need waking, as their kids threaten them with various disasters. Creative line arrangements and rhymes distract from the sometimes uneven meter. The illustrations evoke the bizarreness of dreamland.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Lori Joy Smith. "Riffle-rustle, / feet down-pound. / Another day / has rolled around! / Yeah!" Thirty short poems follow kids through a day: from early morning routine to a romp in the "gurpy-slurpy" mud to a squabble at the park to nighttime "dazzle-dreams." Pencil and digitally colored illustrations add clever, delightful details, but the similarly patterned poems' repetitive over-hyphenation grows tedious.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Dušan Petričić. A boy "skippity-skips" across the edge of a waterfall, "clinkity-clonks" a karate kick to a robot's head, and--"thumpity-thump"--dodges an elephant falling from the sky. There's no linear plot; each page is a scene from the boy's imagined adventures. The only text is onomatopoeic (or nonsense: "nippity-nervy") phrases. It's great fun to read aloud, and the blocky illustrations on monochromatic backgrounds are clever.

Reviewer: David Elzey

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton. A boy in his backyard wishes "so hard / To sail the sea / That the sea / Sailed right to me!" He and his dog set off, running into rogue waves, pirates, mermaids, and other exotic creatures. The lilting, rhythmic text is reminiscent of lyric ballads, while watery gouache illustrations conjure up the magic of an ocean adventure.

Reviewer: Rebecca Reed Whidden

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Bill Slavin & Esperança Melo. A full moon rouses the dinosaur fossils buried in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, and they rise up, "assemble themselves-- / fronts, sides and backs," and party loudly until dawn. Arresting acrylic paintings of the skeletons drumming and dancing on terra cotta-colored hills in the inky-blue night add weight to the lively but slight rhyming text.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton. When a young girl wishes for a unicorn, one miraculously appears in her back yard. Although he's a bit scruffy and behaves more like her dog, the unicorn leads the girl through an enchanted wood to a castle replete with dragons and wizards to conquer. Gouache illustrations add humorous details to the girl's fantasy adventure, which is told in a singsongy rhyme.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley