(3) K-3 Illustrated by Susan Gaber. Lying down to rest, lazy Pierre wakes to find a circus has set up around him while he slept. Thinking that he must be dreaming, he believes he can do anything, from taming a charging lion to dancing on a tightrope to standing on the back of a galloping horse. Armstrong's storytelling is delightfully understated and enhanced by Gaber's beautifully composed, richly detailed paintings.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(4) 1-3 A story of the intersecting lives of a homeless man and a pack of wild dogs in Brooklyn has a happy, if patently unrealistic, ending: everyone ends up fed and sheltered. Frost's expressive black-and-white line drawings lend themselves well to the subject and to the book's large format. The sketchy illustrations, better viewed from a distance, will work well in story hours.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) PS Annabelle the dog barks at the moving van and is lonesome on the plane ride, but she's happy when she and her family arrive at a tropical location "where it smells like summer--every night." Lonely for her old dog friends, Annabelle slowly makes new friends and learns to swim in the sea. Golembe's bright, expressive paintings and simple text will appeal to young listeners whether they are facing a big move or not.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(4) K-3 Feeling at first disinterested, cautious, and ill-tempered about his trip to his grandmother's seaside cottage, Ben is won over by her contagious excitement and love of the ocean in this well-told story. Grandma's caricature-like face is a bit jarring, but the rest of the watercolor and line drawings nicely capture the ambiance and the details of an old beach house in summer.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Jill Pinkwater. Mr. and Mrs. Submarine are eating breakfast one rainy morning when they invite first a cat, then a dog, and a horse in from the rain. Along with a few more rain-soaked animals, the Submarines bring in their car, a Marine marching band, a circus troupe, and none other than Ludwig van Beethoven himself. The escalating nonsense of the droll story is well captured in the bold and cheerful illustrations.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Janet Wilson. Sarah May secretly longs for a red dress to replace the practical navy blue one her mother has sewn. When the young girl gets caught in a rainstorm that washes away the dark dye, she gets to choose a new bright dye for her dress. In a sentimental frame, the story is told by an elderly Sarah May looking back at her rural childhood. Though occasionally stiff, Wilson's illustrations deliver the setting and action with skill.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) K-3 My First I Can Read Book series. Illustrated by Ashley Wolff. In this beginning easy reader, a fish in a tub cheerfully makes room for a slew of animal friends. Unexpectedly, the final tiny visitor does not break up the party as in most cumulative stories of this kind, but instead happily joins in. Clear and pleasant drawings accompany the simple rhyming text.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(4) 1-3 Illustrated by David Christiana. Willard's poem about a yellow ball lost and found in the shadows of an imaginary world is an intriguing mix of fantasy and nonsense. Christiana's watercolors are inventive and magical, and while they match the tone of the poem, taken together the text and art are somewhat overwhelming. Listeners will be better off hearing the poem without the illustrations and viewing the art without the text.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) 1-3 Illustrated by Fabricio Vanden Broeck. Each afternoon Makoa's grandfather canoes out to the horizon to catch the sun in his net, enabling the torch fishers on shore "to attract fish to their spears." When another boy casts doubt on his grandfather's ability to "pull the sun from the sky," Makoa decides to "believe in things [he] cannot see." Luminous pastels, good for sharing in a group, add drama and atmosphere to the well-paced story.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) K-3 A story set in China tells about a special friendship between a boy and a small, high-spirited donkey named Chili-Chili-Chin-Chin. The brief but satisfying text narrated by the donkey follows the two friends through four seasons as they look for flowers, watch turtles, pick persimmons, and make tracks in the snow. Bright and lively illustrations suit the light tone of the story.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) K-3 Pinky Pig works after school at Hamburger Heaven. When business slows and her job is threatened, it is Pinky's ingenuity that saves the day. Kids will appreciate the menu of burgers served with assorted bugs and leaves to beavers, porcupines, and possums. Action-filled watercolors accompany this funny culinary adventure told in rhyme.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) YA Black-and-white photos illustrate this compendium of compellingly honest first-person narratives from disenfranchised youth in Thailand, Ukraine, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and the United States. Shorter narratives by adults from grassroots mentoring organizations give a well-rounded view of the global scope of problems youth and society face with drugs, violence, and HIV/AIDS. The stories are bleak, but all contain real hope and inspiration for change.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(4) 1-3 Francis O'Shea wants to cheer his sister, grieving since their father's death. When he's unable to finish a snowman cr_che outside their house on Christmas Eve, the kind people of Huffington Row lend a hand. The "man of the house" theme is weak, but the Depression-era story is accompanied by watercolor and pencil illustrations that aptly convey the tender mood.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Rosanne Litzinger. Rupa and the villagers believe that it is her act of tromping around the morning fire with her rooster crying "Ki-ki-ri-ki" that raises the sun. So the morning Rupa wakes with a blister on her toe and asks for a vacation, the village elders must hold tryouts to find someone new to raise the sun. Younger children may enjoy the silliness of these obviously misguided characters and their puppet-like faces drawn with sunny opaque watercolors.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) 1-3 Illustrated by Cynthia Fisher. Rosemary loathes rats until she gets acquainted with Cheese, the new third-grade pet. Aiming to save Cheese from the suspected mishandling of a fellow classmate, Rosemary sneaks him home for a night full of adventure and mishap. Although there are no surprises, the chapter book is well paced and satisfying, with plenty of well-wrought illustrations.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Laura Cornell. Curtis's rhyming text and Cornell's lively illustrations create a portrait of an exuberant and very real little girl who one moment feels joyful, excited, or happy and the next bad, sad, cranky, or confused. This humorous look at the subject of feelings and moods features a curly-haired heroine whose independent spirit is reminiscent of Thompson and Knight's Eloise.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(4) K-3 One rainy day Edwin Blink boards the wrong train--instead of riding the high-speed rail, he steps onto an old diesel train filled with an odd assortment of people and farm animals. After several unconventional detours, Edwin learns to relax, pitch in when help is needed, and just enjoy the ride. The slyly amusing illustrations are more effective than the picture-book journey.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(4) K-3 This book offers a lot to look at, including drawings of fourteen different kinds of dog ears on one page, and on another, a figure to trace to "make your own dog." The frantic illustrations and sophisticated collages will be of more interest to adult dog lovers than children. A dog-bone shaped bookmark is included, attached by a string.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(4) K-3 Translated by Laura McKenna. A dog named Roberta becomes bored while visiting her grandparents and sneaks off to the beach on her own. En route she encounters Jerome, a fearsome dog, but a friendship is born when she saves him from drowning. The drawings of chubby Roberta and crocodile-toothed Jerome are humorous accompaniments for the awkwardly worded but appealing French import.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek

(3) K-3 In this humorous counting book, five, then ten, then fifteen, and up to forty cats are stuck in the tree outside of Nana Quimby's house. Her pleas for help to the firehouse, the library, the zoo, the pet shop, and city hall are ignored. "'Sorry,' said the police station, 'we do not catch cats up a tree. Call back if the cats rob a bank.'" Colored with a rich pastel palette, the illustrations are especially lively.

Reviewer: Jennifer Polshek