(3) PS Four goslings and their parents await the hatching of the final egg in the nest. Upbeat rhyming text describes the life around their springtime pond and encourages the unhatched baby until it emerges and the whole family goes for a swim. The close-up, hyper-detailed illustrations offer realistic views of a variety of animals in the pond ecosystem.

Reviewer: Janet Dawson

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Andy Atkins. Napoleon the chameleon is naturally good at disguising himself in the lush tropical rainforest setting. He blends in so well, however, that he's invisible to his friends. An accidental trick finally gets the other animals' attention. Napoleon's tale of persistence is brought to life in the lavishly detailed illustrations.

Reviewer: Paula M. Cairo

(3) PS "Five, ten, / fifteen, twenty. / Stacks of bricks, / bricks aplenty!" Zealous rhymes and art that is almost M. C. Escher–like in its level of detail present a diverse group of workers making and stacking bricks, mixing mortar, and finally building elaborate structures. This fantasy (many of the hard-hatted workers are children) may be just the thing for the Lego-minded.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Illustrated by David Gordon. Rhyming text relates Flip the Kid's experience with his new (robotic) dog: "MOTORDOG THE PERFECT PET! Buy it on the internet!" While out for a walk, the mechanical dog goes haywire when it spies Scoot the Cat. There's humor, but some of it and some of the rhymes are forced. The computeresque font works well with the digital-looking illustrations.

Reviewer: Sheila M. Geraty

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Crab Scrambly. A child helps a lost ghost dog in a graveyard "ventur[e] through the gloom / to try to find his master's tomb." As the twosome passes headstones, readers learn about each grave-dweller's demise. Black-and-white gothic-style illustrations, enhanced by pops of color and buoyed by characters' cartoonish features, complement the dead-on pacing, tone, and content of these ghoulish yet funny rhyming poems.

Reviewer: Cynthia K. Ritter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2013

(3) K-3 A turtle hatchling wriggles free of her egg, makes her way toward open water, and hides in seaweed and sand "for a long, long while" until she has matured and instinct drives her back to her birthplace. With graceful rhyming text and expansive illustrations rich in color and texture, this story of the prehistoric archelon is adroitly presented. An author's note is appended.

Reviewer: Rebecca Reed Whidden

(3) PS After a bulldozer driver discards his sandwich on the ground, an insect cleanup crew emerges and gets to work. Large-scale angular illustrations and a short, clever rhyming text describe the trucker bugs at work: "Earwig loader / revs its motor. / Move that muck, / beetle truck." This is a simple, intriguing, and well-executed concept.

Reviewer: Frieda F. Bostian

(4) K-3 Tadpole Rex grows and develops from polliwog to frog during the time of the dinosaurs. Rex's individual journey suggests an evolution that has kept his species alive for millions of years. Much of this will be lost on the audience, who will nonetheless enjoy the rhyming text and close-up, digitally colored illustrations showing Rex as large as a dinosaur.

Reviewer: David Elzey

(3) K-3 Cyrus has created eye-catching underwater tapestries of marine life that accompany each rhyming and often funny verse: e.g., "All the spiny lobsters trust / The guy behind, because they must." A lonely sardine connects one spread to the next where text is often moving across the page to match the featured creature. Youngsters will enjoy finding camouflaged sea animals.

Reviewer: Hilary Breed Van Dusen

(3) K-3 Including more than just bugs, this volume celebrates the animals found in a garden throughout the year. The humorous poems describe the plight of a beetle stranded on his back, the progress of a snail race, and a snake, "Sliding softly, here and gone, / A belly with a head stuck on." Detailed illustrations tie the poems together by including characters from one poem in the pictures for another.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley

(4) K-3 One rainy day Edwin Blink boards the wrong train--instead of riding the high-speed rail, he steps onto an old diesel train filled with an odd assortment of people and farm animals. After several unconventional detours, Edwin learns to relax, pitch in when help is needed, and just enjoy the ride. The slyly amusing illustrations are more effective than the picture-book journey.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek