(2) K-3 A comical picture book about--and starring--real-life snack food, with a macabre twist (à la Klassen's I Want My Hat Back, rev. 11/11). Three friends--a sprinkle-covered cookie, a cheese curl, and a pretzel stick, all pictured in Border's art "done by manipulating and photographing three-dimensional objects"--nervously approach the home of their neighbor, "Dr. ­Nuttenstein, Mad Scientist." Once inside, they witness the Dr. Frankenstein-ish doctor--a peanut with glasses, twisted-wire appendages, and a head of white hair--trying to shock life into a Nutterbutter. They get caught; they get punished; they learn a lesson; all is well...until the final page-turn reveals the doomed sprinkle cookie's fate. Jokes, puns, and sweet-and-salty characters make this a Halloween treat.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2020

(4) K-3 Penguin Young Readers series. In Border's easy-reader spinoff of his food-themed picture books (Peanut Butter & Cupcake!), new-to-town Peanut Butter is anxious about the upcoming first day of school. At his mother's suggestion, he practices his walk to school, soliciting advice from friends Cupcake, Egg, and Soup along the way. The story feels perfunctory, but Border's trademark color photos of wire-limbed foodstuff are as beguiling as ever.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 While driving to Grandma's house on Christmas Day, Peanut and his parents pick up various fellow peanuts in distress, starting with a baker whose jelly-doughnut-making ambitions are thwarted by a "traffic jelly." The travelers face an unexpected snowfall; will they make it to Christmas dinner on time? Impressively, the color photographs of an anthropomorphized all-peanut cast pull off an enchanting Christmas-classic vibe.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 It's only the first day of school, and already Milk's been labeled "spoiled" by her classmates. After she trips and spills herself, everyone--including Milk--has time to consider how they've judged the others before getting to know one another. The text is pretty much an excuse for predictable food puns; the large photographs of everyday food items with wire limbs are clever.

Reviewer: Rebecca Reed Whidden

(4) K-3 Cupcake runs her birthday party ideas past her friend Muffin, who finds fault with each suggestion (e.g., at a beach party, the sun would make chocolate guests "drippy"). As in Border's Peanut Butter & Cupcake, the story plays second banana to the food-centric photographs, for which he manipulated and augmented three-dimensional objects to incongruously droll effect (note Hamburger's frosted bun).

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) K-3 Peanut Butter, new to town, is having trouble making friends--Hamburger is too busy "walking the dogs" (meaning hot dogs), Meatball jumps (spaghetti) rope, etc.--but finally finds his gelatinous purple partner for the ages. Peanut Butter's friend-courting chant is plodding, but the book's puns are groan-inducingly pleasurable, and the art--for which Border bends and photographs objects--is memorable.

Reviewer: Nell Beram