(3) PS Illustrated by Lori Joy Smith. Well-rhymed, singsong couplets take us through the day of a chickens' county fair: "Chicken farmer shows his plant. / Chicken racers puff and pant. / Chicken chefs and pastry cooks, / chickens watch with hungry looks." Counting questions about each scene are appended, followed by an answer key. The pencil illustrations, digitally colored in mostly pastel tones, further make for a pleasant package.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Sydney Smith. "Pangur Bán" is a ninth-century Old Irish poem about the simple contentment a monk and a cat find in work and life together. In this picture book edition, the adaptation is as unostentatious as the watercolor and ink illustrations, which meld a medieval spirit with a modern sense of cartooning, a juxtaposition that is fresh and seems entirely right. Author's note appended.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2016

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Maxwell Newhouse. This biography of marginalized early twentieth-century Canadian artist Emily Carr reveals as much about the history of women artists' struggle for respectability as it does about Carr's own life story. Pen-and-ink sketches depicting scenes from Carr's life face full-color reproductions of Carr's own paintings, largely of Pacific landscapes and native themes. Timeline. Bib.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl

(4) 4-6 Illustrated by Mark Lang. This is a somewhat disjointed biography of a Canadian woman who suffered from physical disabilities and an impoverished life and still created paintings that evoke joy. Reproductions of the paintings of Maud Lewis, the self-taught twentieth-century artist who depicted life in Nova Scotia, show her bold, naive folk style, while Lang's careful, soft black-and-white drawings depict scenes in the artist's life.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt