(3) K-3 Illustrated by Chris Sheban. An old, hungry dog arrives at a farm looking for work. The farmer declares he has no need for a dog. "We'll see about that," the dog replies. The persistent canine demonstrates his cow-herding, horse-wrangling, and chicken-tending talents for the reluctant farmer until he lands the job of "good dog." Soft, grainy watercolor illustrations add humor to the satisfying tale.

Reviewer: Sheila M. Geraty

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Paul Meisel. Sean McDonald inadvertently builds his house over leprechaun Brian O'Shea's home. Though Brian tries to scare Sean away at first, the two eventually reach an unspoken agreement. When hard times hit, Brian shares his gold with Sean, and the two work together to thwart a robbery. Meisel's whimsical acrylic and watercolor illustrations add an additional layer of lightheartedness to the well-paced story.

Reviewer: Kari Allen

(4) K-3 Illustrated by C. B. Canga. Hals Halson, bent on proving himself as the greatest lumberjack, strides into camp. Lonely Paul Bunyan would rather start a friendship than a competition, but he's forced to best Hals before the latter will bury the hatchet. The story, aptly hyperbolic, is a little weak on plot. Digital-looking cartoon illustrations using woodlike textures and sharp angles reflect the characters' shared skills.

Reviewer: Rebecca Reed Whidden

(4) K-3 Illustrated by John Kanzler. Three puppies abandoned by the roadside worry about their fate even after being put in a rescue shelter. Will all of the dogs find homes in time for Christmas? The bright illustrations don't do much more than reflect what's already in the sweet but simplistic text, though they do succeed in capturing the pups' liveliness and their emotions.

Reviewer: Brittany Schlorff

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Ellen Joy Sasaki. Gus, a young turkey, goes on the lam as Thanksgiving rolls around. He jumps on a ship and arrives at the South Pole where he dons a tuxedo and hides among the penguins. Bright watercolor, colored-pencil, and pen-and-ink cartoons capture the story's humor, though the one-note joke does get old.

Reviewer: Amy Kellman

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Mélisande Potter. Traveling Tom successfully wins the hand of a beautiful princess by tricking a leprechaun out of his pot of gold. This original tale has much to enjoy--a strong storytelling voice, clever plot, and an ending that will leave readers wondering. Potter's gouache, ink, and collage paintings set the fantastical story firmly in the lush green hills of Ireland.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kelly Murphy. During the Irish famine, Fiona uses her wits to force the wily leprechaun king to let some luck back into the human world. The magical world is imbued with subtle colors and sparkles with star-shaped bits of luck while the "big folks" are forced to live in a more monochromatic environment. This inventive story has the cadence of a folktale.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Michael Chesworth. When pirates capture Fluffy, a "pampered poodle," they laugh at his fancy clothes and silly name. Determined not to be thrown overboard, Fluffy outwits the captain, takes over the ship, and teaches the pirates that they can get much better loot by being "cute" than by being fierce. Lively watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations enhance this original tale told in snappy rhyme.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Jackie Urbanovic. For Lotty, as for most children, the start of a new school year is exciting, so when a bully targets her, she is devastated. Despite its didactic intent, the realistic story is kept lively by Lotty's creative solution (she forms a club whose members stick up for anyone being bullied) and by the illustrator's variety of expressive animal students.

Reviewer: Amanda Sullivan

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott. It's April Fools' Day on the farm--or is it? A rollicking, rhyming text and Westcott's comic illustrations match the silliness of this story that has chickens running amuck and goats destroying the wash, at least according to the grandkids. But Grandpa isn't fooled--until Grandma manages to trick him and gets the last laugh.

Reviewer: Amanda Sullivan

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Lynne Cravath. When a king notices that his twelve daughters' shoes are in tatters, cobbler Jack discovers that the princesses spend their nights playing basketball. So Jack "design[s] a shoe / with a rubber sole" and encourages the princesses to come clean to their dad. In this inspired and sturdy update, Bateman's bouncing, bounding rhymes are taut and economical, and Cravath's cartoony images contain witty modern details.

Reviewer: Nell Beram | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2003

(4) PS Illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott. First the cow and then the rest of the farm animals get the flu, so a little boy treats them just the way his mother treats him. He plies them with tissues, belly rubs, and board games until the recovered animals are sent out to play. Westcott's familiar farm animals bring just the right silliness and chaos to this enjoyable if unoriginal tale.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Jill Weber. Tom, a poor wandering minstrel, trades his worn but true-sounding harp for one of gold, thinking it will improve his fortune. He becomes harpist to the king but misses the freedom of his past life. Acrylic paintings rendered in a blue-green palette with flat tilty perspectives complement this bittersweet cautionary tale set in an Irish-looking countryside.

Reviewer: Pamela McCuen

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Patience Brewster. With his greedy brother, Josh, Tarron fishes the sea and dreams of sailing for adventure on his own someday. When they haul in a merbaby with their catch, Josh wants to put her in a glass cage and charge admission to see her, but Tarron decides he must return her to her ocean home. Though the telling occasionally becomes overly sentimental, the watercolor paintings express an enchantingly romantic air.

Reviewer: Emma Loy-Santelli

(4) 4-6 Illustrated by John O'Brien. Occasionally whimsical drawings enliven tidy accounts of seventeen American symbols embodied in word ("The Star-Spangled Banner," the Pledge of Allegiance), image (the flag, the bald eagle), and building or monument (the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore). The writing is engaging but, although the author attempts to separate legend from history, she does not indicate her sources. Ind.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Jeff Shelly. Hoping to catch a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, the sneaky residents of Squawk Valley plan an arts-and-crafts fair with a turkey theme. They recruit Pete the turkey to pose for sculptures, intending to eat him later. But Pete outwits them and uses the many turkey sculptures to screen his escape. The bouncy rhyming story is fun to read aloud, and the watercolor and gouache illustrations heighten the comedy.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(2) K-3 Good-hearted Donald O'Dell rescues a drowning leprechaun and is offered a gift of gold. When Donald refuses, the leprechaun leads him (via a stray cow) to the cottage where lovely, lonely, golden-haired Maureen lives. "There's more than one kind of gold in the world," says the leprechaun. The full-sized illustrations--with their uncluttered compositions and slightly bug-eyed characters--will show up well at story hours.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.