(1) 1-3 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. In five chapters, diminutive gumshoe Baby Monkey solves cases following a predictable pattern, with occasional small variation. New readers will delight in the details in the brief text and the shadowy, noirish black-and-white illustrations with pops of red. The cute little monkey's anthropomorphized facial expressions and the spot-on slapstick pacing of putting-on-pants sequences will have viewers giggling for days.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2018

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. This third Doll People book introduces Annabelle's long-lost sister. Upset by the adults' cautious reaction to the baby, the kids run away. After some misadventures, they end up in a department store, where Annabelle solves a mystery and re-encounters (gasp!) Mean Mimi. The fast pace, sharp characterizations, and profusion of Selznick illustrations (including an extended wordless opening) make this a runaway success.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. This movingly illustrated picture book biography focuses on the Civil War years. In well-crafted prose, Kerley stresses the poet's love of words and his compassion for the common people. Selznick extends the text with glorious colored-pencil drawings. The quoted lines are carefully chosen, and more complete versions of the poems are included in the back matter. Bib.

Reviewer: Kathleen Isaacs | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2004

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. In this sequel to The Doll People, the authors clearly know the contemporary world of dolls and the way kids play with them, mixing in action figures and dollhouse dolls with baby dolls and trolls and paper dolls and Lego structures. The book's broad humor and action balance with smaller, more personal dramas, and Selznick's illustrations, in their wit and profusion, tie it all together in one appealing package.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2003

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. An orphaned boy with a gift for playing the dulcimer runs away from his cruel guardians. William finds a job performing at a tavern but longs to return home for his mute twin brother, Jules. Set in New England in a vaguely historic time period, the book--which has qualities of both a melodrama and a folktale--is written in exquisite prose and newly illustrated with appropriately old-fashioned illustrations.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. This picture-book biography of the American contralto indulges in mythification (although the keynote of the Anderson myth--being kept out of Constitution Hall by the D.A.R.--is here muted), but Marian Anderson's career was significant in both musical and social terms, and Ryan and Selznick get this right. Throughout both the large double-page spreads and text there's an intimacy of tone that gives life to the legend.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2002

(4) 1-3 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. With its burnished imagery and distinctive premise, this Depression-era story begins promisingly but dissolves into a warm puddle of nostalgia. Second-grader Reuben all-too-easily overcomes his fear of flying after his dad, a dance teacher, gets a job performing his dance steps on a plane wing in midair. The chapter book is uplifting but not altogether believable.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2002

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. Natalie writes a whole book and gets it published under the eye of her unsuspecting mother, a children's book editor, who only knows that she has an exciting manuscript from an unknown author. Family read-aloud and publishing comedy are two genres you don't often see brought together, but that's exactly what Clements has done here. The occasional pencil illustrations are warm and witty.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2001

(3) K-3 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. This picture book introduces the English artist who, using the few fossils available, created the earliest models of dinosaurs. After his work was displayed at England's Crystal Palace Park, he came to the United States with plans to bring dinosaurs to Central Park. Kerley's pithy text is a good match for Selznick's attractive art, which is clear-eyed yet contains a dash of magic.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta

(1) PS Illustrated by Brian Selznick. A series of eighteen brief poems are, the illustrations reveal, spoken by a "farmer" who is in fact a small city boy putting his toy farm to bed. Each poem is an exercise in empathy; and because they are prayers, they evoke not only the care between child and toy, farmer and animals, and parent and child, but also that between Creator and creature. Acrylic paintings in super-saturated colors suggest an Eden of the imagination.

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

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. Bothered that she hasn't seen her aunt Sarah for forty-five years, Annabelle Doll embarks on a search that takes her out of her protective dollhouse. She braves dangerous territory beyond the nursery to discover not only the answers to family secrets but also a whole new family of dolls. Black-and-white pencil drawings illustrate this lively addition to the doll-fantasy genre.

Reviewer: Cyrena Musset

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Brian Selznick. In this largely fictionalized biography, Ryan offers some reasons why Charlotte (Charley) Pankhurst, who pretended to be a boy to escape from an orphanage, continued the masquerade throughout her life as a stable boy, stagecoach driver, and rancher in Gold Rush California. Full-page pencil drawings give readers a sense of characters' emotions by focusing on close-ups of individuals or small groups.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.