(2) PS Illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein & Jeff Mack. A green moose, a pink mouse, and a blue goose all live in a rickety house. Deciding they've had enough of this dirty and drippy dwelling, they dream up a new home for themselves with some very important criteria: it must be sunny, funny...and have a bunny. A raucous, semi-rhyming journey ensues when "Moose, Goose, and Mouse took a train in the rain to look for a house." Their ride in the caboose (where else?) takes them up and down a series of hills when suddenly--"ooooops!"--the caboose comes loose. Much to the animals' surprise, their roller coaster of a train ride helps them find just what they were looking for. Gerstein and Mack's watercolor, ink, and digital collage illustrations come to life through bold colors and thin outlines that reverberate with every wiggle, wobble, bonk, and crash; an appended note by Mack explains their bittersweet collaboration (Gerstein, before his death, asked Mack to complete the work). Simple sentences with predictable structures and plenty of rhyme will both support independent readers and make for comedic read-alouds. Fans of Jan Thomas's picture books and Mo Willems's Elephant and Piggie series will happily befriend this trio of whimsical creatures in their delightfully slapstick adventure.

Reviewer: Grace McKinney | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

(1) K-3 Following I Am Pan!, here comes Pan’s father, Hermes, the messenger god, eager to tell his own story. This Hermes is handsome, insouciant, impulsive, and bursting with self-esteem (his first word: “Gimme!”). These are bright, noisy, fast-moving adventures decorated with contemporary touches, and Gerstein proves himself a genius of the comics form, especially of the speech balloon, as he creates layered conversations, rich with interior monologue, gossip, and prevarication.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2019

(2) K-3 When a whale gets caught in a father-son pair's only fishing net, the father goes off in search of a replacement net, while the boy risks his life to free the whale. The art is dazzling: a cinematic, dramatically paced series of spreads captures the boy's joy at freeing the whale, his uncertainty when it dives and disappears, and his awe when it explodes out of the water.

Reviewer: Minh Lê | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2017

(1) K-3 Untrammeled ego, resilient, charming--this is a Pan we all recognize. In this set of the Greek god's adventures--including the invention of panic, falling in love with the moon, and King Midas--panel illustrations match words with a hectic, nervous line; Day-Glo colors; and an uppercase hand-lettered text. A genial author's note and brief list of sources provide some context.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2016

(1) K-3 In Gerstein's unexpectedly humorous version of Henri Rousseau's The Sleeping Gypsy, with a context-setting prologue, he eschews his familiar style for Rousseau-like opaque acrylics. One by one, animals inspect a woman sleeping by moonlight until Rousseau appears, explaining that this is a dream, which he intends to paint. Neatly conceived and wittily executed, Gerstein's story exemplifies the visual thinking strategies children often use at museums.

Reviewer: Lolly Robinson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2016

(2) K-3 Cat Sylvie wakes her boy in the wee hours. Outside, they encounter animals waiting for something. Gerstein defines characters and objects in scribbly black silhouette (with a few white accents) on mottled dark-gray paper. At last dawn breaks, light and color return, and the nocturnal wildlife retreat. The glory of daybreak, brilliant atop the sooty paper, is both comfortingly reliable and astonishing.

Reviewer: Thom Barthelmess | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2015

(2) K-3 This absurdist version of French folktale "Drakestail" stars a farmer duck who is wealthy in jelly beans. When a little-boy king "borrows" his jelly beans, Duck sets off to get them back. Along the way he makes some odd yet helpful friends. Gerstein's pen-and-ink, acrylic, and colored-pencil illustrations employ a cheerful palette, with scribbly lines and dialogue bubbles.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2014

(2) K-3 How would you get to the moon? To begin with, a giant slingshot fashioned from inner tubes can propel a line of garden hoses, anchoring it to the moon with a flagpole arrow. The second-person instructions are ingeniously detailed, brimming with an unfettered mix of real and pseudo information, as are the precisely imagined and neatly rendered illustrations.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2013

(2) K-3 The narrator begins by addressing a modern kid: "Imagine...You live in a cave...You love to watch animals." The pictures then flash back to a prehistoric child who is inspired by his encounter with a woolly mammoth to trace its image on the cave wall. Gerstein enhances his simply sketched figures with luminous acrylics and colored pencil, in hues from pure sky blue to firelight.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2013

(3) K-3 In twenty-two free-verse poems, three children share thoughts about objects in the world around them. Subjects include toothbrushes, toes, ice-cream cones, crayons, and pillows. Sensitively observed, the imagery is vivid and childlike: the title poem's hot dog is as "snug as a puppy / in your bready bun." Outlined in black, the loosely rendered illustrations complement the spirit of the verse.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(3) K-3 Plucked from his wading pool by "a nearsighted pelican," baby Arnold grows up with a loving family of ducks, who bring him up in duckdom as best they can, until he finds himself back with his human family. Gerstein's empathy with the world's wild children was evinced early in this picture book.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton

(2) K-3 "Once, in A BOOK...there lived a family of characters." These characters attend to their lives/stories--except the girl, who turns pages looking for her story. Gerstein's characteristic pen-and-paint-on-vellum technique creates a vivid depth. Visual perspective locates readers where they actually are vis-à-vis the physical book: looking down from a bird's-eye view, as if they could literally drop into the scene.

Reviewer: Nina Lindsay | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2009

(3) K-3 The childless Portlys find a kitten under their sofa. They dress, feed, and spoil her, then send her to school, where her active distaste for rules gets her in trouble. The story, featuring a heroine whose delectable devilishness is displayed in the antic illustrations, works both as rollicking entertainment and, more subtly, as commentary about parents' unconditional love.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(2) K-3 When Mama Jay flies away from the nest, a baby blue jay promises to stay put, but she accidentally falls. Using speech bubbles and lush illustrations, Gerstein records the unfolding drama as the balance of bravery and timidity keeps shifting. Baby Jay finally spreads her wings and finds that, though life outside can be dangerous, it can be exhilarating as well.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2007

(4) K-3 Gerstein enhances the traditional biblical story with Jewish legends, elevating the ram that saves Isaac to the hero of the tale. Illustrations hint at depictions of the divine, while those of "the evil one" are shown as scary cartoons. Though this book offers little to readers unfamiliar with the story, it is an innovative retelling.

Reviewer: Miriam Steinberg-Egeth

(2) 4-6 In a time and place evoking Mitteleuropa, peasant girl Gisella gazes so deeply into a fox's eyes that the two switch bodies. Gisella, now a fox, struggles to survive on land devasted by "Norland" and "Surland" armies. The story is grim, yet it beguiles the reader with imaginative plotting and descriptions. Wise questions are raised but--wisely--remain open in this thought-provoking fantasy.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2005

(3) 1-3 Stepping Stone series. Despite his great-aunt's warnings, Martin stares into the eyes of a fox. They magically trade bodies, and each gets to experience life as the other for a day. This fanciful tale, illustrated with spry black-and-white line drawings, brims with the flavor of fables and will appeal to any child who has daydreamed about living in the animal world.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.

(2) K-3 In 1868, John Bardsley returns to his native England to fetch a thousand sparrows in hopes that they will eradicate Philadelphia's inchworm infestation. This is a charming tale of "Sparrow Jack's" predilection for the little birds, but it's too bad there's no note about the truth--many people imported English sparrows to the U.S. Lively and harmonious compositions range across every spread in a pleasing variety of frames.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2003

(1) K-3 Is this another September 11 book? No--and yes. In 1974, Philippe Petit, the French street performer and high-wire walker, couldn't resist the temptation to dance between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Gerstein pulls the reader into the story with a conversational style extended by playful pen and paint illustrations. Like Petit, Gerstein conceals much careful planning behind an obvious enjoyment of his subject.

Reviewer: Lolly Robinson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2003

(1) K-3 Composer Charles Ives was "born with his ears wide open" to melodies played by his music-teacher dad and to all other sounds in late-nineteenth-century Connecticut. The deftly sketched scenes are overlaid with the sounds that were Ives's inspiration--onomatopoetic words, like cheerful graffiti, are rhythmically repeated in vivid color. This is a thought-provoking picture book, an unusually creative synthesis of format, composition, and text.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2002