(2) PS Illustrated by Christian Robinson. This conversation-starting picture book presents a series of questions and invites children to supply the answers. The first spread asks viewers to count the number of animals pictured, with Robinson depicting a creature-filled tree and a bear and elephant at its base. The next spread, featuring a tiger partially concealed by jungle leaves, adds an element of delicious mischief: "How many animals can you not see in this one, because they're hiding from the tiger?" There's much more mischief: someone has just robbed a bank ("which of these ladies" did it?); bandits bury a treasure (and "what would you do if you found it?"); there's a mysterious beast in a bathtub (what kind?); and more. Some questions give simple options, one spread showing three sleeping children with Barnett's text asking which one dreams of peaches. Others are open-ended, making them a good match for creative writing prompts. For instance, a woman stands atop a cliff next to the question: "Who is she waiting for?" Robinson's textured mixed-media collages provide just enough detail and sometimes pose visual questions that the text doesn't even touch on. How, for instance, did the snake get in the tennis shoe pictured on the cover? Even the endpapers are a delight, Robinson turning everyday objects (a banana, a mug) into question marks. This is creative, interactive picture-book fun, without question.

Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. Front endpapers depicting a stark mountain of rubbish, and a title-page image of a Black boy peeking out from behind a jam-packed trash can, set the stage for this unflinching parable about confronting the world's ugliness. When the boy clears away sidewalk trash with the help of a light-skinned man in a wheelchair, he uncovers a wildflower that inspires the creation of a public garden box that rallies their diverse community. Gorman urges readers to resist any suggestion that they should wink at societal problems and assume powerlessness. "Someday, somewhere [you'll] find a friend" with whom to do "something small" to tackle big issues is the book's hopeful promise. Robinson's pared-down paint and collage illustrations offer a wealth of white space, giving readers room to process the serious subject matter.

Reviewer: Summer Edward

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. Pianist, singer, and composer Nina ­Simone was born Eunice Waymon in rural North Carolina in 1933, a child "who had music on the inside." Treated by turns as a prodigy, curiosity, and nuisance, after high school Eunice left North Carolina for NYC and Juilliard. After a series of indignities and disappointments, she began performing at a nightclub in Atlantic City; her growing fame led Eunice to change her name to Nina Simone in an attempt to hide her "unholy" music from her mother. At the same time, the momentum of the ongoing civil rights movement was a "relentless, demanding" drumbeat that proved impossible to ignore; and as Simone felt more pressure (internal and external) to speak out against racism, she decided she was done playing nice, as politeness "had gotten her people nothing." Robinson (You Matter, rev. 9/20; Milo Imagines the World, rev. 3/21) punctuates this section with flame-like cut paper and sooty smudges symbolizing the "steady, rising roar" of injustice, culminating in a double-page spread showing Nina and her band playing against a fiery backdrop. Todd ends her unflinching narrative with a perfectly placed, direct-address line: "And when she sang of Black children--you lovely, precious dreams--her voice sounded like hope." This unexpected, yet needed, outpouring of love is the perfect end to a stunning book. An author's note "About Nina Simone" and a bibliography are appended.

Reviewer: Sam Bloom | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2021

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. Harold and the Purple Crayon meets twenty-first-century urban realism in this picture book by the Last Stop on Market Street (rev. 1/15) author-illustrator team (simultaneously published in Spanish as Milo imagina el mundo). Milo, a diminutive brown-skinned boy with round glasses and a lime-green hat, boards a subway train with his big sister. While she plays games on her phone, Milo studies people and imagines lives for them through his notebook and colored pencils. Robinson's art alternates between color-saturated, double-page-spread scenes of train activity and Milo's sketches. Milo sees a boy wearing a suit and draws him as a prince arriving at his castle; for a wedding-gown-clad passenger, Milo draws her imagined ceremony. He then reimagines and re-illustrates many of his scenes, intentionally looking at his subjects in a different way. Milo and his sister finally reach their destination: a detention center, where they visit their incarcerated mother (the boy on the subway who was wearing a suit is visiting someone, too). As in Jacqueline Woodson's picture book Visiting Day (rev. 11/02), the joy and parent-child love shine through, and the climax comes with Milo's sharing of a special drawing he has created for his mother. This poignant, thought-provoking story speaks volumes for how art can shift one's perspectives and enable an imaginative alternative to what is...or seems to be.

Reviewer: Michelle H. Martin | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2021

(2) PS Illustrated by Christian Robinson. "Just in case you want to fly / here's some wind / and here's the sky // here's a feather / here's up high /and here's a wing from a butterfly." The creators of When's My Birthday? turn philosophical in this offering. Though somewhat sentimental, the rhyming text's grownup-sounding voice also sprinkles in some gentle silliness. Robinson's trademark sense of play in his spare, geometric illustrations enhances--and occasionally winks at--the text's sense of wonder.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2019

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. The team behind the award-winning Last Stop on Market Street introduces young Carmela, who's delighted to spend her birthday in town running errands with her older brother. He's irked that she's underfoot but comes through when she encounters an unexpected disappointment. The commanding cut-paper-like art is full of textured brushstrokes--perfect for this look at a community short on gloss but rich in love.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. In this companion to Gaston, poodle Antoinette--unlike her bulldog brothers--has no particular talent. But she finally discovers what she's good at when her friend Ooh-La-La runs off at the park, and Antoinette's bravery and doggedness save the day. Engaging acrylic illustrations in a warm, rich palette support the empowering tale, which is told with panache; even the typeface has personality.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(1) PS Illustrated by Christian Robinson. In her rhythmic, stream-of-consciousness text, Fogliano captures the intensity of children's feelings about birthdays by repeating the word birthday with a playful obsessiveness: "when's my birthday? / where's my birthday? / how many days until / my birthday?" Robinson mixes his signature cut-paper and paint style with photo-collage elements, giving an added layer of texture. The tall, narrow trim size mimics the shape of a birthday card.

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

(3) PS Illustrated by Christian Robinson. This child-centered meditation on life and death was first illustrated in 1958 by Remy Charlip. Robinson's sensitive new mixed-media art, with its personality-rich quartet of young people (one boy wears a fox mask and tail for most of the story) and its city-park setting, elicits the children's deeply felt emotions and their actions to honor the bird's memory.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2016

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. We've had many books about kids getting ready for school, but now we have another perspective: the school's itself. Frederick Douglass Elementary is worried about meeting the students (Janitor says: "Don't worry--you'll like the children."). Rex's droll telling is fun to read aloud, especially when the school is talking. Robinson's naively styled paintings are the perfect complement to a warm, welcoming story.

Reviewer: Robin L. Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2016

(3) PS Illustrated by Christian Robinson. It's winter, and five little penguins living in an igloo joyfully bundle up and head out for a glorious day of sledding--until Mama comes to fetch them and bring them home for cocoa, cookies, and bed. Wonderfully tactile acrylic and cut-paper collage illustrations paired with a spare, evocative text capture the siblings' idyllic day.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. Leo, a ghost boy, wanders into the city and meets a girl who thinks he's her imaginary friend but who stands by him when Leo's true nature is revealed. The friendship between the youngsters is touching and well partnered by Robinson's acrylic collage illustrations. Each page offers incidental and kid-pleasing pleasures of its own.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2015

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. CJ, a young black boy, has a flurry of questions for his grandmother one rainy day. "How come we always gotta go here after church?" "Here" is a soup kitchen, where they work every Sunday. Nana has bottomless look-on-the-sunny-side answers, but she isn't dispensing bromides; the exquisitely composed collage illustrations showing a glamour-free urban setting forbid a glib reading. A quietly remarkable book.

Reviewer: Nell Beram | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2015

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. Bumptious Gaston looms over his elegant poodle sisters. At the park, they meet a family like theirs but in reverse: bulldogs Rocky, Ricky, and Bruno and their petite sister Antoinette. Were Gaston and Antoinette switched at birth? Should they trade families? DiPucchio's lively text was made to be read aloud. Robinson's elegant illustrations feature dogs with minimal yet wonderfully expressive facial details.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2014

(1) 4-6 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. This incomparable biography conveys dancer Josephine Baker's passion, exuberance, dignity, and eccentricity through words and pictures that nearly jump off the page. Powell doesn't shy away from the challenges (including racism) Baker faced but emphasizes that Baker never let them overwhelm her joy from performing. Robinson's highly stylized, boldly colored illustrations are at once sophisticated and inviting to young readers. Reading list.

Reviewer: Kathleen T. Horning | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2014

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. A grumpy elderly man resents the rain ("Dang puddle"); meanwhile, his young neighbor is overjoyed by it ("It's raining frogs and pollywogs!"). They both end up at a café, where the boy seizes an opportunity for friendship. This is a wholly fresh story told through short dialogue quips and paint and collage illustrations with remarkably expressive human faces.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Christian Robinson. This picture-book biography of songbird Florence Mills highlights her humble beginnings as a "daughter of former slaves, who grew up in a teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy house" before chronicling her rise to fame during the Harlem Renaissance and the strides she made for African American artists. Robinson's inventive mixed-media art beautifully complements Watson's lulling prose. An author's note expands on Mills's benevolent spirit.

Reviewer: Nicki Richesin