(3) PS Illustrated by Dave Mottram. "A siren turns off. The sun fades away. / Fire truck is drained. He's had a big day." Three books into her dreaming-vehicles suite (Bulldozer Dreams; Race Car Dreams), Chriscoe delivers fresh rhymes to describe a bedtime routine, complete with (car wash) bath, a (gas station) snack, and sweet (rescue) dreams. Mottram's chunky, gauzy art fittingly seems cloaked in moonlight.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Dave Mottram. Ebullient and verbose, Wordy Birdy always talks a lot: "Hello, sunrise. Hello, pink sky. / Hello, orange sky. Hello, yellow sky." But she is a terrible listener, even when her forest friends plead with her to avoid a menacing bear with spiky teeth. The expressive characters' word-balloon dialogue and the colorful cartoonlike illustrations help convey the engaging story's theme of friends sticking together.

Reviewer: Sheila M. Geraty

(3) PS Illustrated by Dave Mottram. "The zooming has stopped. The sun's almost set. / A race car is tired. He's wringing with sweat." So begins a race car's post-race wind-down, which includes a bath (car wash), food (oil change), and finally sleep. This amiable book, which features vivid, chunky illustrations suggesting Pixar animation stills, will scratch the same itch as Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Dave Mottram. Grubman riffs on the Jewish folktale about the overcrowded house (à la Zemach's It Could Always Be Worse) and "The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe." The clever retelling mostly works, but some of the rhymes are a stretch. Energetic cartoon illustrations show thirteen children, two parents, and farm animals bouncing off the walls--of the shoe.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz