(2) K-3 Balloon Toons series. Color by Amy Rumbarger. Two comic-panel beginning readers use bright colors and high-energy cartoons to impart very different content. In Hiccup! nerves combined with a huge breakfast give rabbit Jamie a case of hiccups that jeopardizes his role in the school play. Dinosaurs contains three short stories exploring life in the wacky Dinosaur Galaxy. The books' different temperaments recommend them to a range of young readers. Review covers these Balloon Toons titles: Hiccup! and Dinosaurs in Space.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2013

(2) K-3 Balloon Toons series. Color by Amy Rumbarger. Two comic-panel beginning readers use bright colors and high-energy cartoons to impart very different content. In Hiccup! nerves combined with a huge breakfast give rabbit Jamie a case of hiccups that jeopardizes his role in the school play. Dinosaurs contains three short stories exploring life in the wacky Dinosaur Galaxy. The books' different temperaments recommend them to a range of young readers. Review covers these Balloon Toons titles: Hiccup! and Dinosaurs in Space.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2013

(3) K-3 Balloon Toons series. Uptight housecat Prickles demands that mouse Squeeky get rid of his friends--some dust bunnies who have taken up residence under the couch--before the "Big Cheese" comes home. There's lots of hilarity in the speech-bubble text (a bunny: "We're real. We're interesting. We're organic") and the art (the bunnies look like smudgy fingerprints with oversize humanlike eyeballs).

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Balloon Toons series. Watch Dr. Bugspit (who resembles a pink slug) treat all sorts of patients at his "outer-space clinic." His "modern equipment" includes an electric train set, and among his reference books is How to Sleep at Work. The jokes (punning, silly, gross-out) are good but go on for too long. Creature-populated comics-style art illustrates the tale.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Balloon Toons series. A boy wonders about his constantly sleeping dog's dreams. In quirky cartoon panels, we see some of them: the dog imagines dining at a fancy restaurant, becoming a rock star, and rescuing a fair puppy maiden. At night, he and his boy share the dream of playing together. Unfussy illustrations of the ambitious pup in repose enhance the story's humor.

Reviewer: Susan Halperin

(4) K-3 Balloon Toons series. A boy and his Bigfoot-like friend named Butterscotch imagine they're knights. They confront a monster that's destroying a princess's kingdom and seek out hidden treasure before the boy heads off to dreamland. The fast-paced cartoon-format adventures and slang-heavy text won't be every new reader's cup of tea, but some will be hooked.

Reviewer: David Elzey

(4) K-3 Balloon Toons series. Zoe (a girl) tries to involve Robot (an android camped out in her living room) in a game of pillow mountain climbing. Despite Zoe's best efforts, the skill of pretending doesn't come easily to Robot. Eventually he gets the hang of it, and their climbing party is a success. There is some humor, especially in the cartoon-panel illustrations, but tension is lacking.

Reviewer: Susan Halperin

(4) K-3 Balloon Toons series. Four friends grab their pets and spend a day at the Super-Duper Dog Park. The place features scads of entertainment options, including a bouncy house for dogs and their owners. There's not much story here; instead, it's a pleasant-enough tour of Steinke's rich, dog-centric imagination. The energetic pictures do well by being calmly outlined in black and colored in understated hues.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Balloon Toons series. This is a tongue-in-cheek book-length plug for a tiny fictitious creature resembling a black jack-o'-lantern with pointy ears and stick limbs--imagine an Uglydoll set in Sunday comics–style layouts. Sentence by sentence, the narrative is quirky and amusing ("Give your glurbs a chick pea and they'll play soccer"), but collectively, the welter of attributes add up to little.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Balloon Toons series. Friends Rick, a raccoon, and Rack, a deer, star in three outdoor-themed adventures. Beginning readers will appreciate the easy-to-follow text and abundant silliness as the friends go fishing, track animals, and take a canoe ride. Clearly defined cartoon panels and text bubbles support and extend the action, while the characters' facial expressions greatly enhance the humor.

Reviewer: Beth L. Meister

(4) K-3 Balloon Toons series. The story opens with a girl's ode to cats: "You must kiss them. / You must love them. / You must hug them. / You must hold them." When another girl inquires about this book's title, the new friends dance together then travel to the moon. Logic is lacking; however, ample humor from the colorful cartoon-panel illustrations will please kitty lovers.

Reviewer: Beth L. Meister