(3) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. During two lonely weeks on his grandparents' farm, Charlie discovers the satisfying sound a rock makes when it strikes a bridge's metal railing. He's convinced an answering "BONG" is more than "just an echo," especially when it happens day after day. This quiet story captures the pace and possibility of unstructured and unsupervised time. The warm illustrations seem infused with summer light.

Reviewer: Rebecca Reed Whidden

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. Little Buddie Earl travels to the Peach-Pickin' Festival in the back of his father's old jalopy, yodeling along the way. The family wonders, "What’s the use of that?" until his talent eventually makes them all proud. The warm hues aptly portray the heat of the South, while the playful use of language and repetition makes for a genial read-out-loud. No source note is included for this adaptation of a Russian folktale.

Reviewer: Sophie Williamson

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. As Sullivan explains in an excellent note, musician Jake Krack was only nine when he traveled to hear noted fiddler Melvin Wine, then eighty-six. Inspired by that friendship, Sullivan depicts just such an old man and gifted boy. The story is told in the lyrical, laconic lilt of its Appalachian setting, also captured in gentle golden-tinged gouache and watercolor paintings. Websites. Bib.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2011

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Kimberly Bulcken Root & Barry Root. "Dashing riders, / Brightly dressed. / Racing swiftly, / East and west." Kay's simple rhyming verse describes the history of mail delivery, highlighting the role of the short-lived Pony Express. Invented letters between siblings add a human perspective and a sense of time and place, while the Roots' watercolor and gouache illustrations bring the Western setting to life. An author's note is appended. Timeline.

Reviewer: Tamara DePasquale

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. A plastic bag escapes a landfill to serve one purpose after another on a cyclical, wind-powered journey. It carries aluminum cans, blocks incoming wind under a door, and joins homeless people's belongings. The wordy story itself refrains from moralizing, leaving the recycling-is-important message for the author's note. The bag's yellow hue stands out in the painterly watercolor and gouache illustrations.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. After losing three sons, a sailor and his wife establish a farm and have another son, Jack. They plant an apple tree, and Jack and the tree mature together, the tree miraculously reflecting the boy's welfare even after Jack sets out to sea. Root's new illustrations are in warm, dappled golds and cool blue-grays that brighten in the story's happier times.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2008

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. Wilma and her young neighbor plant "small starts of balsam." The two care for their crop until it's finally ready, five years later, to be sold as Christmas trees. Ray's quiet, leisurely narrative reflects the work and planning involved in farming trees. Root's watercolor and gouache paintings honor the characters' warm intergenerational friendship. An author's note offers history about Christmas trees.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2008

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. This third book about perseverance and teamwork by twin NFL players focuses on young Tiki's struggles with ball carrying. Tiki's improved skill, honed by extra practice time with Ronde, is on full display during a winning play against their archrivals. The golden tones of the watercolor and gouache paintings nicely reflect football season, but their composition is stiff.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(3) PS Illustrated by Barry Root. When Granny hears that her grandbaby goes "wiggly, jiggly, all-around giggly" over bluegrass music, she packs her banjo, dons her thousand-mile shoes, and heads for a visit. The warm watercolor, gouache, and pastel-pencil illustrations depict different scenes from Granny's journey and baby Owen eagerly awaiting her arrival. An author's note gives information about bluegrass music; music for "Owen's Song" is included.

Reviewer: Sheila M. Geraty

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. NFL stars (and twins) Tiki and Ronde relate an incident from their childhood. The sports-minded brothers had always been inseparable, so when Tiki seriously injures his knee in a bike accident, Ronde encourages him through his recuperation and his return to football in September. The story rambles, but the pictures are saturated with hues as sunny as the story's sentiments.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. The author has transposed her recollections of childhood games into a tale of five giants at play. The unlucky fifth giant, who is always "it," is the only one who can count. The "one potata, two potata..." rhyme to determine who is "it" is incorporated into the brief text, and the giants are amusingly depicted as they run off in the four directions of the earth, but the story is negligible.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. When he returns from fishing to discover that his cat is nowhere to be found, an old man realizes how much he appreciates his only companion, from whom he had hid his affection--"'You ain't nobody's prize.'" The story captures the bond that can exist between person and pet, and the watercolor and gouache art emphasizes the quiet simplicity of this pair's life together.

Reviewer: Anne St. John

(2) PS Illustrated by Barry Root. "And the pigeons coo / And the big dogs bark / And the noises echo through the park." The simple couplets steer us from the horse path to the zoo, over a bridge, to a close-up of boys and their boats on the boathouse pond. Using cinematic elements with subtlety and style, each double-page, full-bleed spread is a paean to this best of parks. Root paints with a skilled hand, using a palette so lush you can smell the warmth of summer in it.

Reviewer: Karla Kuskin | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2002

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. Spend a pleasantly frantic day with Calvin Curbhopper, bicycle messenger extraordinaire. The text comprises spare, jazzy rhymes ("Sun, wind, rain, snow, / Messenger, messenger, gotta go"), and the shadowy, detailed paintings reveal what the spare text doesn't: the city's splendor, busy street life, and Calvin himself (he reads and listens to music when he's off the clock).

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. A peck of bug-eyed prize potatoes tiptoe out of the "Bud and Bean Arena" at the County Fair, and roll through the midway on a daring rescue mission: to save their fellow veggies from the fiendish Chef Hackemup. Speed's inventive, rhythmic verse is well spiced with wit. Thankfully, Root doesn't personify the sliced vegetables (unlike the horrified survivors) in his intense--and intensely colored--illustrations.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2000

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. When Mama and Daddy go dancing on Saturday nights, a young girl doesn't mind a bit, because she has three terrific, imaginative baby sitters. The best Saturday nights, however, are the ones when Mama and Daddy stay home, and the three of them create their own jamboree. The energetic story, told in rhyme, is accompanied by bright watercolor and gouache paintings.

Reviewer: Patricia Riley

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Barry Root. This pleasantly rhyming text tells of a young boy's dreams of an evening on the prairie, full of cicadas, coyotes, and the light of "La Luna." Root's softly glowing illustrations capture the silvery grays of nighttime and the warm oranges of the campfire in a romantic cowboy setting. This is a good sundown choice for cowpokes ready to hit the hay.

Reviewer: Susan Halperin

(3) K-3 "Stay out of my garden," and "You are worse than a weed," Miss Pepper scolds an abandoned dog who repeatedly makes himself at home in her flower beds. Despite the old woman's efforts to curtail the dog's visits, her affection for the persistent pup grows, and she finally adopts the canine charmer. With warm humor, the watercolor and gouache pictures nicely convey the pair's blossoming friendship.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.

(3) K-3 In this humorous adaptation of the Russian folktale "The Turnip," sweet little Isabelle helps her family by singing and dancing around a carrot, which grows to be enormous. Down-home dialect and an old T-Bird give the tale a 1950s-rural-America feel. The illustrations, full of curving jubilant lines and lots of carrot orange, are appropriately wacky.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.