(2) PS Illustrated by Holly Meade. In this companion book to In the Wild and On the Farm, poetry and art combine to create memorable portraits, for the very young, of twenty ocean creatures. The full-spread woodcut-and-watercolor illustrations are both striking and simple. Tone of the very short poems varies nicely: most are lightly humorous while others are evocative and almost majestic. Reel this one in; it's a keeper.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2012

(1) PS Illustrated by Holly Meade. Bartoletti shapes the ancient Arabic ghazal verse form into a gentle text centered on Noah's wife's lulling song: "As rain falls over the ark at night, / As water swirls in the dark of night..." Meade's watercolor collages, including sunlit figures and quietly dramatic, near-black silhouettes, are a fine complement to the text. A lovely lullaby, in a beautiful, masterfully integrated book.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2011

(2) PS Illustrated by Holly Meade. In full-spread woodcut and watercolor art, Meade captures both the essences and habitats of fourteen worldwide animals: a jaguar prowling the jungle floor, an evanescent polar bear immersed in a blue-green sea, etc. Elliott's deftly composed verses include paradoxes ("Big, yet moves / with grace") and wry thoughts. A beautiful book, not quite as lighthearted as it first appears.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2010

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. The book describes events and milestones alerting children to the impending arrival of Halloween. These include raking the yard, decorating the house, deciding on and making a costume, carving pumpkins, and of course trick-or-treating. The text's comfortable pattern and cozy watercolor and collage illustrations support the story's anticipation of holiday fun.

Reviewer: Alissa C. Salamone

(1) PS Illustrated by Holly Meade. A series of brief, often funny poems catch the personalities of farm animals, from the bull to the bees; Elliott's keen observations don't always flatter the beasts. Softly tinted, spacious woodcuts on large, full-bleed pages are imbued with humor, texture, and the beauties of the natural landscape. This book will make an unusually interesting choice for farm-animal storytimes.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2008

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. When Virginnie's hat gets blown into a tree, she throws her boots up to knock it loose. Unbeknownst to her, some swamp critters are attracted by her red-painted toes. Luckily, they're scared away by the plummeting boots and Virginnie's triumphant yell when the hat falls. Watercolor and collage illustrations handily portray the drama unfolding underfoot while Virginnie's back is turned.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. Takeboki is the monks' "Flower Keeper." Relatives urge him to find a better job, but he's content. The story celebrates the rewards of meaningful work and the artistry of Japanese gardens. Meade's mixed-media illustrations depict Takeboki's dedication. The pages are a bit busy to evoke the garden's spare formality, but they do suggest how rich a seemingly unadorned life can be.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2007

(2) PS Illustrated by Holly Meade. In this companion to Hush!: A Thai Lullaby, a rhyming text describes a father and daughter's game of hide-and-seek. Young audiences will enjoy searching the pictures of a lush jungle filled with animals to find the orange-parasol-toting girl. Meade's illustrations feature the cool and bright colors of dawn; the endpapers, with lines of (presumably) Thai writing, are a nice touch.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2004

(3) PS Illustrated by Holly Meade. The blue bowl is the centerpiece of a mother-toddler bread-making team. Standing on a stool, the child helps sift flour and knead before he is off to bed and the dough is set to rise. The lullaby-like text sings with repeated phrases and words. The large format and type complement Meade's distinctive collages full of warm, homey details.

Reviewer: Hilary Breed Van Dusen

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. Theodore the elephant, who has hurt his leg and can't get across the forest to meet his cousin, asks his friends for advice--"that's what friends are for." After much well-meaning but ineffectual advice, the opossum sets everyone straight: "friends are to help." The cumulative text builds satisfyingly, and Meade's new illustrations, full-bleed double-page spreads in watercolor and cut-paper collage, are striking.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. Serene watercolor and collage illustrations showing children at play accompany a simple rhyming text that paraphrases some of the ideas expressed in Psalm 139. Lindbergh's lyrical description of God's intimate knowledge of each individual--"Lord, you look at me and know me, / Every step I take, you show me"--conveys this biblical concept beautifully for young children.

Reviewer: Anne St. John

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. Animated paper collage enhances this story of an injured Canada goose that lands with a flock on a girl's pond. With empathetic language, Best tells the story from the girl's point of view. The girl watches the geese and notices how the one that lost a foot is ostracized by the rest. In September, all the geese are gone. Next March, the girl sees her goose no longer shunned but part of a family--one that by book's end includes seven babies.

Reviewer: Susan P. Bloom | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2002

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. Queenie's husband walked off after the simultaneous births of their fifteen daughters. Unfazed, Queenie is a hard-working single mother who indulges her daughters to the max. The message concerning the competent, ever-coping mother is hardly subtle, but the repetitive litanies and comical accumulations of detail keep this engaging tall tale light, as do the airy pen lines dappled in cheerful watercolors.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2002

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. The bright watercolor illustrations of a lusty red-eyed rabbit and a rosy-cheeked girl heighten the sinister elements in this traditional tale of a maiden lured away from her mother by a rabbit. When the girl discovers she is to be the bride at the rabbit's wedding, she uses her wits to escape, bringing a happy resolution to this unsettling tale.

Reviewer: Pamela McCuen

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. This picture-book biography of the country's first female steamboat captain portrays the river-loving Blanche first as a child and then as a young woman whose husband, a steamboat captain, teaches her the mysterious, unpredictable ways of the Mississippi. Exuberantly colored cut-paper art effectively realizes the three central characters of the story: Blanche, the river, and the romantic steamboat itself.

Reviewer: Susan P. Bloom | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2000

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Holly Meade. A girl relates the cacophonous sounds of her grandparents' snoring and its effect on their quaking household. The book retains its sense of humor to the end, as the girl's own snoring brings her amazed grandparents to her bedroom. Meade's lively line keeps the simple story moving and gives charm not only to the little girl but also to the overactive household objects, which add their own sound effects to the rousing chorus.

Reviewer: Lauren Adams | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2000

(1) K-3 When hat-maker John Batterson Stetson went West as a young man in 1859, people wore any old thing on their heads. How Stetson's ungainly but perfectly adapted thick-fur felt creation became an indispensable part of Western attire is the subject of this lively picture book. Carlson's storytelling prose sets the scene and tells the tale concisely and enticingly, and Meade's mixed-media illustrations have an appropriately rough-and-ready feel. Bib.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.