(3) K-3 Green Light Readers series. Illustrated by Jess Golden. When Lana can't convince her family to go to the moon (it's "far away" and "has no gravity"), she decides to go by herself. With glow-in-the-dark stars on her walls, some boxes-turned-rocketship, and a bit of imagination, Lana blasts off. Golden's watercolor illustrations effectively complement Silverman's text, which is just challenging enough for an emergent reader and dynamic enough for a classroom read-aloud.

Reviewer: Lana Barnes

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Laure Fournier. A father and daughter walk through a city in the early morning as the sun rises and daytime activities commence. Skillfully showing the changing light, Fournier's illustrations depict an uncluttered urban landscape. The spare rhyming text--with poetic tendencies such as onomatopoeia, simile, and metaphor--captures the gentle tug between taking in the sights and making it to school on time.

Reviewer: Dorrie Karlin

(3) K-3 Green Light Readers series. Illustrated by Jess Golden. Lana, a little girl with a huge imagination, turns her hallway into a street for a rainy-day parade and her bed into a fishing boat, and she eventually gets her distracted family members to join in the fun. The childlike illustrations provide a whimsical backdrop to Lana's creative ideas. Emerging readers will benefit from the books' story patterns and repetitive sentence structures. Review covers the following Green Light Readers titles: Lana's World: Let's Go Fishing and Lana's World: Let's Have a Parade.

Reviewer: Lana Barnes

(3) K-3 Green Light Readers series. Illustrated by Jess Golden. Lana, a little girl with a huge imagination, turns her hallway into a street for a rainy-day parade and her bed into a fishing boat, and she eventually gets her distracted family members to join in the fun. The childlike illustrations provide a whimsical backdrop to Lana's creative ideas. Emerging readers will benefit from the books' story patterns and repetitive sentence structures. Review covers the following Green Light Readers titles: Lana's World: Let's Go Fishing and Lana's World: Let's Have a Parade.

Reviewer: Lana Barnes

(2) PS Illustrated by Steven D'Amico. On the last night of the holiday, extended family and friends gather in Rachel's streamer-festooned living room for her family's “Hanukkah Hop.” The evening starts with storytelling and dreidel-spinning; arrival of the Mazel-Tones klezmer band ramps things up. Silverman's gleeful text has rhythm, and D'Amico's angular illustrations, with their circa-1950s flair, keep up the pace throughout this unabashedly joyful Hanukkah romp.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2011

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Stacey Schuett. Silverman adroitly tells the story of the privileged nineteenth-century New Yorker who defied the thinking that "girls who used their brains too much would become ill" and shined as a social activist and poet; her "The New Colossus" graces the base of the Statue of Liberty. Schuett's multicolored swirls add verve to the staid historical backdrops. Reading list, websites. Bib.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Betsy Lewin. Four short stories mark Cocoa and Kate's sixth adventure. Sweety Pie gives birth to a frisky calf; the calf diverts Cocoa from work; Cowgirl Kate receives a puppy as a present; and Cocoa and Kate discover a nest of barn owls. Full-color illustrations appear in multiple shapes and sizes, duplicating the action while providing text breaks for new readers. Home on this range is sweet and predictable.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2010

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Betsy Lewin. Tired of barn life, Cocoa the horse decides to visit Kate inside the house while her parents are away. After the hapless horse wrecks the home's décor during his explorations, Kate must put on her thinking cap to get Cocoa back where he belongs. The blend of humor and problem-solving makes this a good choice for more advanced independent readers.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Betsy Lewin. Cowgirl Kate and cowhorse Cocoa return in four rainy-day adventures that highlight the close friendship between girl and horse. Lewin's watercolor illustrations, an effective mix of double-page spreads and spot art, emphasize the characters' personalities, while Silverman's text is both accessible enough to work as a beginning reader and rich enough to function as a read-aloud story.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2008

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Rosanne Litzinger. In Silverman's sprightly new take on an old rhyme, the "wee woman who lived in a shoe" bundles up her many children and pets to search for a more spacious abode. After a perilous journey, they meet a young girl who asks them to live in her dollhouse. Litzinger's eye-catching compositions invite inspection but also encourage readers to turn the pages.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Betsy Lewin. This third book about Kate and her talking horse Cocoa explores familiar territory: when Kate starts school and makes a new friend, Cocoa feels left out. Each of the book's four short chapters ends happily, and by the end Cocoa is back to his old self. Lewin's amiable watercolors add even more appeal to this approachable book.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Betsy Lewin. Readers moving on from the Henry and Mudge series will be able to read these simple chapters, but they are apt to be disappointed. In the slight depiction of a friendship, Kate and her horse talk to each other as Kate tries to coax Cocoa into behaving the way a cowhorse should. Lewin's cheery watercolors are the strong point here.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein. Gerstein's loose, scratchy pen seems just right to illustrate the story of the great Yiddish comic writer's Russian childhood. Mischievous Sholom's spirited personality comes alive both in Gerstein's drawings and Silverman's fluent text. An author's note, an afterword, and a bibliography round out this engaging portrait of a man who asked in his will that his name "be recalled with laughter."

Reviewer: Susan P. Bloom | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2005

(2) PS Illustrated by G. Brian Karas. In this affable look at the hierarchy of sibling relations, a game of follow the leader has the older brother giving benign commands, which the younger brother cheerfully performs--to a point. Round-headed figures comport their blocky bodies in such a way that it's clear both boys are basically having fun. The moment when the younger boy finally gets his turn in front highlights the genuine affection never far beneath the surface of their interactions.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2000

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Susan Gaber. Although Raisel must labor as the nasty cook's helper in a rabbi's home after her grandfather's death, she has been taught well by her Zaydeh about the value of study and is no helpless Cinderella. It is Raisel's intelligence, not her beauty, that entrances the princely Rabbi's son after her kindness to a beggar woman wins her three wishes--among them a beautiful Purim costume. Gaber conveys a folkish simplicity with a sophisticated line to evoke a Poland of both dreams and reality.

Reviewer: Susan P. Bloom | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 1999

(4) K-3 Using "The House That Jack Built" formula, a sleepwalking girl is joined by a dove and a collection of others who come to the Mayfest celebration. When the milkmaid kisses the minstrel, the kiss travels backward until it reaches the dove who, quite unbelievably, hatches an egg and wakes the girl. Detailed ink and watercolor illustrations show the quirky parade.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.