(3) K-3 Illustrated by Ron Barrett. In a companion to the nearly half-century-old Animals Should Definitely [cf4]Not[cf3] Wear Clothing., the Barretts present a gallery of elegantly--if hilariously--dressed animals. A horse in sneakers, a bear sporting a down coat, a turtleneck-wearing turtle: accompanying sober-sided text explains why the animal is better off without. The digitally colored pen-and-ink illustrations have a decorum that plays well with the silly, kid-pleasing concept.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Ron Barrett. The Barretts explore the alphabet with one colorful and energetic search-and-find picture after another (e.g., "Avalanches of As" shows a bunch of As consorting with a wild assortment of images of A words). The final page consists of items found in the previous pages to go back and search for. Not many actual words appear, but the book is lots of fun to pore over.

Reviewer: Robin L. Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2016

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. According to this satisfying origin story, Santa's just a guy blessed with a "jovial disposition," an "obsession with toys," an inventive mind, and a generous nature. His first-person narration is plainspoken with touches of folksiness, taking readers from babyhood through his early schooling, college, and beyond. Hawkes's vibrant acrylic and colored-pencil illustrations capture the simpler-times family sensibility and the story's winking, tall-tale elements.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2012

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Ron Barrett. The stories that inspired 2009's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie are included in this book. The title tale describes the inhabitants of Chewandswallow, their unique food source (the sky), and the highly unpredictable and dramatically changeable weather. The less suspenseful, more message-y Pickles to Pittsburgh rounds out the volume.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Ron Barrett. Two neighboring kingdoms are sworn enemies. When someone accidentally crosses the border, it sets off a marshmallow battle. The residents eventually decide their divisions are silly and they make peace over s'mores. The Barretts' (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) latest again features flying food, but the plot lacks cohesion. Clear pen-and-ink illustrations display the political machinations and silliness.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(3) K-3 Illustrated by John Nickle. Kids will immediately absorb the wisdom of the pithy, emphatic rules laid down here: "NEVER sit next to a porcupine on the subway," "NEVER take a giraffe to the movies," "NEVER hold hands with a lobster." A cast of animals and insects illustrates the hazards of breaking the rules in appropriately absurd full-page paintings.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Sharleen Collicott. Barrett poses a set of rhyming questions about each refreshingly quirky illustration. "Which witch is learning to stitch? Is it the one wearing socks? Is it the one eating lox? Is it the one looking in a box? Or is it the one with chicken pox?" The complicated compositions, featuring a variety of animals wearing witchy outfits, reward observant readers with plenty of creepy, humorous details.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(4) PS Illustrated by Daniel Moreton. Various animals star in these nonsense rhymes about the numbers one through ten: "I watched five arrive / and saw them dive / off their hive / onto the drive. . . ." The computer-assisted illustrations bring the wacky, complicated elements of each rhyme together and add some humorous details of their own. The rhythms are bumpy, but kids might be inspired to come up with their own animal counting rhymes.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(3) K-3 In this list of silly superlatives, a snake on ice skates is the "wiggliest" and a skunk convention is the "smelliest." Each example is illustrated with a slick, slightly surreal painting that takes full advantage of the wonderfully absurd text. The book ends with a fill-in-the-blank page to be duplicated so kids can create their own examples.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.

(3) K-3 This edition is slightly larger than the original, with a vertical rather than horizontal shape. Superintendent of an apartment building, Old MacDonald begins encouraging tenants to vacate their apartments so he can replace them with vegetables and farm animals. Barrett's pen-and-ink illustrations are quite funny, and only the plants and produce are colored, so they stand out in the drab building.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.