(3) PS "I've bean thinking of u." This diminutive book is a love letter spiked with produce puns (bean for been, berry for very, etc.); the featured fruit or vegetable, which Ehlert creates with her signature cut-paper technique, commands each spread. A fine touch: each spread, combining the produce illustration with letters, numbers, and hearts, doubles as a rebus.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(2) K-3 Isadora recasts "The Green Grass Grew All Around," setting it in Africa. As the verses accumulate, the subject of each line is shown as a rebus; complete lyrics and musical notation are included. Bright blue birds star in the collage illustrations, standing out dramatically against the earth-tone foregrounds and stark white backgrounds. A fine contribution to picture books based on children's songs.

Reviewer: Kathleen T. Horning | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2012

(3) PS Hillenbrand presents twenty nursery rhymes, both familiar ("Jack and Jill") and lesser-known ("Polly and Sukey"). Each includes some rebus pictures, with the words printed below in the larger illustrated scenes. Mixed-media illustrations in Hillenbrand's folksy style ably support the picture-puzzle concept and the details of the traditional tales.

Reviewer: Brittany Schlorff

(3) PS Illustrated by Linda Davick. It's the first day of school, and a frog, duck, mouse, and snail describe their activities: writing their names, playing with blocks, doing art projects, eating lunch, and so on. The school-is-fun message is warmly conveyed through rhyming text, and kids will enjoy decoding the simple rebus pictures. Cheery illustrations show the animal characters enjoying classroom time.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Valorie Fisher. Venturing into the new five-and-dime store, Benny discovers some highly unusual merchandise: a flying toaster, sword-wielding clock, etc. To help attract customers, he suggests some sparkly star decorations. Though the story--told with a blend of rebuses and text--isn't particularly meaty, young readers will enjoy decoding the puzzles. A couple of the mixed-media illustrations have too-blurry backgrounds, but the wacky wares grab attention.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(3) PS Illustrated by Tomek Bogacki. In the author and artist's second rebus book, icons replace one or two words in each sentence and are defined in a picture-glossary at the bottom of the page. The text is scattered in segments across the illustrations and can be difficult to follow. That said, the story (about a turtle afraid to cross the river because of a big hippo in the middle) is sweet and funny, and the softly colored paintings are simply beautiful.

Reviewer: Lauren Adams | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2002

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Nancy Winslow Parker. This is the author-illustrator team's eighth rebus book, and its cumulative formula will help new readers or even nonreaders tell the amusing tale themselves. On a field trip to the zoo, a young boy loses items of clothing as he encounters different animals and ends up in a zookeeper's uniform. The clear and simple illustrations carry the story along.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(2) PS Illustrated by Nancy Winslow Parker. A young boy energetically demands items that will make him feel better--a box of tissues, a blanket, the cat, jigsaw puzzles, TV cartoons. . . . Rebus pictures stand in for each item on the list so that children can easily join in "reading" the rhyming, cumulative text. Colorful pictures of the boy's comfortable surroundings and favorite things reinforce the appeal of staying home.

Reviewer: Lauren Adams | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2001

(4) 4-6 Cherry doesn't like her new stepfather, although her best friend Skinny Melon thinks he's nice. Cherry's journal entries show her adolescent angst as she struggles to accept her parents' divorce and her stepfather. Interspersed with Cherry's writings are rebus notes from her stepfather and her mother's letters to a friend. The letters feel out of place and make the mother seem too unsympathetic in this otherwise entertaining novel.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Tedd Arnold. In a cumulative rhyme based on the "House That Jack Built" formula, various animals wake one another up, then take a bus to the zoo and climb into their cages for the day. The rhyme is entertaining, and the goofy, bug-eyed animals in both the illustrations and the rebus are amusing.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley

(4) PS Illustrated by Suse MacDonald. "Every bird loves a tree / Every flower loves a bee / Every lock loves a key." Each stanza in this simple rhyming poem describes the affectionate relationship between two things, ending with "And I love you." The rebus is easy to guess and is helped along by the rhyme. Sheep, pigs, sand pails, socks and shoes, among other common images, populate the saccharine illustrations.

Reviewer: Amy Timberlake

(3) PS After each new character in the familiar cumulative rhyme is introduced, a rebus represents them in the text, making it easier for young children to follow along with the story. Readers can predict who will enter the story next by watching for visual clues. The small trim size of the book and the clear, vibrant colors and simple shapes of the artwork are appealing, showing the lively occurrences in the house that Jack built.

Reviewer: Anne St. John

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Tomek Bogacki. Rebuses, identified in sidebars on each page, help tell the engaging folkloric story of the three title characters, who coexist unhappily in the same tree until it falls down and they must hunt for a new home. The book presents a lively incorporation of childlike artwork and text, although the page layout gets too creative at times, making it hard for the eye to know how to proceed.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Nancy Winslow Parker. This rebus-filled cumulative rhyme begins with an engineer's cap and finishes with a whistle at the gate. The book ends with a somewhat drawn-out rhyming nag from Mom about picking up toy trains before bedtime, but otherwise, Neitzel's text is entertaining. Parker's illustrations of trains and objects are clear and appealing in both the larger pictures and the small rebuses.

Reviewer: Susan Halperin

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Tedd Arnold. A knock on the door wakes and startles a spider, a ghost, a skeleton, and other inhabitants of a haunted house. The spooked spooks get their final fright when they open the door to a trick-or-treater. Kids will relish the surprise ending, the textured cartoon illustrations, and the rebus pictures incorporated into the cumulative verse.

Reviewer: Emma Loy-Santelli