(3) K-3 In this early reader comic with a simple but effective rhyming text, Fox plays tricks on Pig during a day of digging on the beach, but gets his comeuppance each time. Helpfully for new readers, each speaker’s speech bubbles are a different shape and color. The thick-lined digital-looking illustrations’ palette, with plenty of yellows and blues, is appropriate to the beach setting.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax

(2) K-3 There's nary a ghost or goblin here--but there might as well be. Squids, as the creepily clever rhyming text claims, emerge from the ocean under cover of dark, "and while you snore / the squids squeeze / underneath your door" and draw on walls, dolls, and you--and that, as you'll tell your parents, is how all this ink got everywhere. Shadowy art in black, white, and inky blue enhances the eerie atmosphere. Once After Squidnight gets its tentacles into you, you'll never think of squids the same way again.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2020

(2) K-3 Ready-to-Read series. In this darkly funny early reader in rhyme, the cheerful titular bug doesn't seem to be long for this world when a frog shows up in the bog; the simply drawn, expressive cartoon illustrations show the frog eyeing the bug hungrily and even donning a bib. A fog obscures a moment that seems to be the end of our insect friend, but that boldly lettered "CHOMP!" and "CHEW!" might not mean what readers assume at first. Simple rhymes, repeated words, and brief lines of text in large print make for an effective easy reader, and the decoding work pays off in a story with humor, suspense, and nearly singable meter ("See the bug in the bog. // See the bug on a log. / See the bug watch / the muddy bog bubble. // The bug sits. / The bug sings. / The bug thinks / happy things, // never dreaming / there could be some trouble"). It could also lend itself to a lesson plan about making predictions--if one doesn't mind having one's predictions upended in the silliest way possible. (Burp.)

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

(3) K-3 Penguin Young Readers series. Two squirrel brothers stuff their mouths with nuts in We Need More, then implore the reader to take them away by Please, No More--they "cannot stand their guts." The cartoony characters relate the humorous narratives solely in speech balloons on cleanly designed spreads. The rhyming texts are nicely repetitive and have an energetic (if silly-frantic) beat. Review covers these Penguin Young Readers titles: Please, No More Nuts! and We Need More Nuts!

Reviewer: Jeannie Coutant

(3) K-3 Penguin Young Readers series. Two squirrel brothers stuff their mouths with nuts in We Need More, then implore the reader to take them away by Please, No More--they "cannot stand their guts." The cartoony characters relate the humorous narratives solely in speech balloons on cleanly designed spreads. The rhyming texts are nicely repetitive and have an energetic (if silly-frantic) beat. Review covers these Penguin Young Readers titles: Please, No More Nuts! and We Need More Nuts!

Reviewer: Jeannie Coutant

(4) PS In a companion to Barnacle Is Bored, annoyingly pushy Plankton tries to engage Mister Mussel in conversation, to no avail. When the mussel finally opens its mouth--"SNAP!"--it eats Plankton. And good riddance. Cartoony animation-inspired illustrations carry the slight story, told completely in speech bubbles.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(4) PS For Barnacle, "every day is the same. The tide comes IN...The tide goes OUT." When a polka-dotted fish swims past, Barnacle enviously imagines the fun he must have playing with other ocean creatures--until an eel swallows the fish. Barnacle's over-the-top facial expressions and beige coloring perfectly capture his boredom, but the plot (conveyed entirely in reader-addressed speech bubbles) drags.

Reviewer: Rebecca Fox