(2) K-3 Illustrated by Serge Bloch. While facts about our smallest unit of currency are adroitly dropped into the text, the focus is on one particular penny, "born" in 1983, who describes its journey back and forth across the country. The little traveler is an actual photographed penny against airy and appropriately humble line-and-wash sketches. Appended with "A Brief History of U.S. Coins" and "Interesting Facts About Pennies." Reading list.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2017

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Serge Bloch. The narrator's father gives him a pet snake as a gift, but it's not just any snake. It spells words with its body, including this droll bit of advice for the narrator's mom: "relax." The book's second half--a laundry list of the snake's virtues--fizzles. More successful is the spot-colored black-and-white art, which favorably recalls Jules Feiffer's work.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Dyanne DiSalvo. When Grandma loses her smile, the only one capable of finding it is her six-and-three-quarters-year-old grandson, so he obliges by flying down to visit. Like the narration, which sounds nothing like a child's voice, the text, with its lampooning of air-travel woes, seems aimed squarely at grandparents. Nicely rendered illustrations capture the warmth of the characters' relationships.

Reviewer: Amy Lois Cohn