(2) PS Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. Vincent is a peripatetic mouse who carries a small house, in the form of a die-cut hole, on his back. He temporarily settles atop a small hill, where he knows "he needed to be." When a series of animals--a bullfrog, a cat, hedgehogs, badgers, etc.--appear, all needing a place to stay, they can't believe they'll fit in Vincent's house. But it turns out that the small house is bigger on the inside; better yet, it keeps expanding. As each new animal moves in, a new house appears on the hillside, reinforcing the sense of community and spaciousness; readers are eventually treated to a delightful double gatefold revealing an entire neighborhood of symbolic homes, each one somewhat resembling the creature it represents. After an indoor feast, a bear appears. The other residents recoil in fear, but Vincent declares, "In my house, all animals are welcome." Stutzman's text possesses a subtle humor, including the use of the phrase "one by one by one by one by one by one by one" to refer to the number of creatures who seek shelter. Arsenault's textured illustrations, filled with rewarding visual details and surprises at nearly every page-turn, bring to life the snug interior world of Vincent's home. A warm, welcome, and satisfying read.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2022

(2) 4-6 Translated by Sam Gordon. Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. This is a poignant story of war, loss, and resilience--and a child's need to know even painful truths. With her father fighting in WWI, five-year-old Rosalie sits at the back of her French-village school, hoping to learn to read her father's letters. When she breaks through to literacy, she learns a devastating if cathartic truth. De Fombelle's (Vango) spare text allows narrator Rosalie's fierceness to shine through. Arsenault's emotive art focuses on significant details.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2019

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. Hall's nimble rhyming verse and Arsenault's warm illustrations provide an up-close visit with a friendly colony of anthropomorphized honeybees. The book hovers between fiction and information; the solid if limited facts are conveyed in an impressionistic style. The text's varied rhythms mimic a bee's movements in a summery world; that atmosphere is captured in the mixed-media illustrations' muted palette of mostly yellow, gray, brown, and beige.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2018

(1) 4-6 Translated by Susan Ouriou. Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. The collaborators behind Jane, the Fox & Me have crafted another poignant picture book–size graphic novel. Louis and his little brother live with their always-worried mom, occasionally visiting their untreated-alcoholic dad. Louis's insightful observations about realistic familial struggles are heart-rending; dramatic pencil and ink illustrations employ powerfully moving wordless panels and splashes of yellow and greenish-blue to depict his somber world.

Reviewer: Cynthia K. Ritter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2017

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. Bourgeois, who became most famous for her giant sculptures of spiders, also worked with textiles, and it's at her family's tapestry-restoration workshop in France, along a river "that wove like a wool thread through everything," that the book begins. Novesky sews together the many themes of Bourgeois's art and life into a spare yet lilting narrative. Arsenault's mixed-media illustrations create stylistically and compositionally varied images.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2016

(1) 4-6 Translated by Susan Ouriou. Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. In this powerful picture book–size graphic novel, Hélène, ostracized by her former friends, escapes into reading, specifically Jane Eyre; in Jane, Hélène discovers an outcast kindred spirit. Arsenault uses varied page layouts and a mix of illustrative techniques to pace the story and express emotion. Britt's poetic prose captures Hélène's heartbreaking isolation in this brutally beautiful story.

Reviewer: Cynthia K. Ritter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2014

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. "Once upon a northern night while you lay sleeping, wrapped in a downy blanket, I painted you a picture." A loving narrator creates a vivid word-picture of the scene outside a sleeping child's window: snow falls on yard and trees, woodland creatures visit, and the northern lights appear. Wintry mixed-media illustrations, with eye-catching touches of color, complement the poetic text.

Reviewer: Martha Sibert

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. When Virginia wakes up with the "doldrums," her sister, Vanessa, tries to help, but nothing works until she suggests that Virginia think of a place where she would be happy. Vanessa then paints this imagined world. The illustrations, showing Virginia's transformation from wolf back to little girl, and of her world from gloom to glad, convey the isolation and chaos of a mind uneased.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2012

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. An author's note explains that Anna is a German Mennonite, traveling from Mexico to Canada to work the crops. This little-known group, wearing old-fashioned garb and speaking a German dialect, merits attention, and the story is sensitive to the inequities of migrant life. However, the text and pictures are distracted by too much nature imagery as Anna imagines herself to be various animals.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. Spork, the offspring of a spoon and a fork, feels conspicuous in the kitchen. Forks and spoons ignore him, and he goes completely unused--until a "messy thing" (a baby)--arrives on the scene. Nothing treacly about this mixed-cutlery tale; the clever text and lively illustrations have enough zest to make the lesson about fitting in around the table more than palatable.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander

(3) YA Visions in Poetry series. Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. In this book of seven Dickinson poems, the pictures say as much as the words. Arsenault illustrates lines of loneliness, death, and heartache with dreamlike mixed-media art. The haunting images of a pale and fragile-looking Dickinson reflect a dark yet imaginative interpretation of the reclusive poet's works.

Reviewer: Chelsey Philpot