(1) K-3 Illustrated by Marc Martin. Starlings are social birds, at times flying in groups so large that their wings create a murmuring sound that can be heard by humans on the ground. A honed text and stunning watercolor, pencil, and digital collage illustrations work together to give readers a sense of this phenomenon. "There are hundreds of us! / There are thousands of us! / There are millions of us!" Furrow brings his background as a scientist and Napoli her wide experience writing for children to this collaboration that has both the rhythm of poetry and simple but accurate information: "We find strength and safety in numbers. / We find warmth in numbers." Starlings fill and overflow the pages, swooping in gorgeous waves across the double-page spreads as the birds escape from a hungry falcon or land en masse in a field. The colors of the mixed-media illustrations bleed and blend together. The edges of each bird's wings are indistinct, smudging and overlapping as the mass travels together across the reds, oranges, and pinks of the sky. A striking gatefold gives a sense of the massive scale of a murmuration. An endnote gives readers additional information about starling behavior. Pair with Scanlon and Preston-Gannon's One Dark Bird (rev. 7/19).

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(3) 1-3 Sly the Sleuth series. Illustrated by Heather Maione. Sly's latest trio of cases all require code-cracking, as she discovers while investigating a four-year-old who sings gibberish, a series of strange notes, and graffiti scrawled in the boys' bathroom. Elementary-school readers will find a lot to relate to here--from Sly's fears about being cut from the baseball team to her run-ins with a bossy classmate. Approachable sketches accompany the text.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(3) 1-3 Sly the Sleuth series. Illustrated by Heather Maione. Sly the Sleuth investigates three new cases. As it turns out, the new mysteries all involve friends and food (fish-oil cookies, a wheat allergy, and disappearing oranges). The multiple strands in these quirky stories come together in a satisfying way, and silly wordplay abounds. Cheerful pen-and-ink illustrations accompany the stories.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(3) 1-3 Sly the Sleuth series. Illustrated by Heather Maione. Readers of the Cam Jansen series will be delighted to meet another energetic, confident girl sleuth. Sylvia, known as Sly, solves three short mysteries involving the pets in her neighborhood. The stories are easy to read and engaging, the pen-and-ink illustrations convey the light tone of the adventures, and Sly's first-person narration is convincing.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth