(3) PS Illustrated by Wade Zahares. The familiar winter song is newly illustrated with showily stylized paintings. Zahares, best known for Window Music, adopts a palette of electric blue and brick red for the snowy scenes; long shadows fall across the blue snow, and the double-page spreads are distorted as if viewed through a fisheye lens. The accompanying CD, performed by Kenny Loggins, also includes two other child-friendly tunes.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Wade Zahares. In concise couplets, Ransom recounts the legend of Chincoteague ponies ("Big ship wrecks. / Stormy sea. / Cargo horses / Swimming free") and the first Pony Penning Day. To maintain rhythm, the text occasionally sacrifices meaning or creates non sequiturs. Nevertheless, pony lovers will thrill to the story's drama and pacing, also captured in Zahares's blocky, slightly abstract pastel illustrations. Reading list, websites.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Wade Zahares. Jake and his prospector pa get a pet pig, which sets off a chain of events that leads to their prosperity. Pa talks about having good luck, but Jake believes less in luck and more in action. The sunny story is told in a deliberately deadpan, unruffled tone. The thickly applied, intensely colored pastel illustrations feature odd perspectives and deep purple shadows.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2007

(3) K-3 John Gardner, Eve Merriam, Valerie Worth, and Dick King-Smith are a few of the poets included in this collection. Fifteen short poems feature such creatures as the alligator, piranha, viper, and vulture. The poems aren't all menace and gaping maws, however; a few humorous ones lighten the tone. Double-page spread pastel illustrations use color and unusual perspectives effectively to underscore the most fearsome characteristics of the animals.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(4) PS Illustrated by Wade Zahares. Rhyming text enumerates the colors and sights of fall including orange pumpkins and Scarecrow's black hat. The rhymes are often forced, but the rich pastel illustrations are handsome. Large expanses of color and sculptural shapes defined by shadow are particularly suited to sharing with a group.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(3) PS Illustrated by Wade Zahares. A simple, rhyming text describes different types of deliveries (newspapers, oil, logs) in a way that's more impressionistic than straightforward. Rich, color-saturated artwork shows detailed scenes that include different vehicles and their routes along serpentine paths. The sophisticated, stylized illustrations invite repeated viewings.

Reviewer: Susan Halperin

(1) PS Illustrated by Wade Zahares. A child and her mother ride a train from the country to the city in this book that is much more about the journey than the destination. The illustrations jump off the page with intense colors and dynamic design, and the short text underscores the actions and ambiance of each spread. This is a book that understands the simultaneously exciting and hypnotic lure of trains--and of "window music," railroad slang for passing scenery.

Reviewer: Lolly Robinson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 1998