(3) PS Illustrated by Kim Smith. This rhyming story features a robot adult and child in a creative twist on the adult-wrangles-child bedtime ritual. "Still so energized and wired! / Little Bot--why aren't you tired? / Comb your circuits. / Brush your bolts. / Plug you in. / Recharge your volts." Entertaining digital illustrations showcase a brightly colored space-age household where even the pets are robots.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Luciano Lozano. Rhyming couplets follow a smile from one person to the next as it brightens everyone's day. At the end, the happy neighborhood gathers for a party. The illustrations have an old-fashioned vibe, and they begin with a diverse cast that becomes all-white halfway though. The illustrations fill in some story-line gaps, but the narrative is pretty slight.

Reviewer: Miriam Steinberg-Egeth

(3) K-3 Illustrated by David Catrow. The third epistolary I Wanna book takes as its subject Alex's week at his grandparents' retirement community. To Alex's surprise, his apprehension turns into appreciation. Orloff shoots for easy old-people targets (dentures, unhipness) but is overall gentle, and if Catrow depicts the grandparents as semigrotesque, he extends the same courtesy to the remaining cast.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Tim Bowers. A boy imagines what fun he and his dog Oscar would have if Oscar could talk. The pup could go with the boy to school, help out on the soccer field, even be on a quiz show. Orloff's rhymes are tight and jaunty; most verses end with the refrain, "...talk, Oscar--please." Bowers's cheerful illustrations of boy and dog are humorous and warm-hearted.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley

(3) K-3 Illustrated by David Catrow. Alex, forced to share a room with his younger brother ever since his sister was born, engages in a letter-writing volley with his father, with whom he pleads for his own space. The trademark grotesquerie of Catrow's illustrations (the kids look like sunburned old men) is offset by the book's humor and the affection undergirding even the most histrionic of the father-son exchanges.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by David Catrow. This epistolary picture book consists of an exchange of notes between a boy pleading to adopt a classmate's pet iguana and his apprehensive mother. Funny and true to life, the story (which has a happy ending) is amplified by Catrow's over-the-top illustrations, which portray a series of imagined scenarios, including a giant iguana riding a bike while playing a guitar.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano