(2) K-3 A New York City cab driver grudgingly picks up a stranger who asks to be driven not to Bleecker Street downtown but to Schmeeker Street, on "the other side of town." On Schmeeker Street, everything is round and pink and green; pigs and flamingos roam free, and the landscape looks like dessert. Wordplay makes the offbeat pastel package a strong read-aloud.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2013

(2) 4-6 Millionaire factory owner Anson Boulderwall is looking for someone to groom to be his business's next president. When orphan Joe arrives in town to stay with his aunt in the summer of 1965, Boulderwall decides that Joe will be the one. Joe, however, dreams of becoming a scientist. Babbitt's subtle prose cloaks and deepens this brief moral fable of American ambition.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2012

(2) K-3 Retold by Rand Burkert. Illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. Nancy Ekholm Burkert brings her meticulous style to Aesop's classic, setting it--as did Jerry Pinkney in The Lion and the Mouse--in Africa. Rand Burkert's character-revealing, story-advancing dialogue is the sort to captivate a group. It's an admirable complement to the matchless Pinkney volume, sure to invite productive comparison. Author's and illustrator's notes are appended.

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

(2) K-3 A kid gets a rhinoceros as a pet. A rhinoceros expert tells him that rhinos only do two tricks: pop balloons and poke holes in kites. During a robbery, the rhino pops and pokes and saves the day. Cartoonist Agee's wry, understated paintings and a relaxed, spacious page design--along with the text's tough-as-rhino-hide structure--provide great durability for multiple retellings.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2011

(2) 4-6 Twelve-year-old Norman Normann and his friends' madcap journey leads them to various parts of Manhattan, Austria, and Singapore. Don't expect a linear plot here but rather an ode to ten-year-old humor, enthusiasm, and improbable characters and situations. Embellished with Raschka's spot art, this rousing tale contains strong wordplay, a little vocabulary instruction, and a lot of laughs.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2011

(2) K-3 In a set of twenty portmanteau puns ("Who is building Mr. Putney's hot tub? A boa constructor") we follow our hero through an event-filled day. The riddle pattern lends itself perfectly to page-turn suspense and wild guesses. Agee's pared-down cartoon style adds to the fun: "Who is snooping on Mr. Putney?" A spyena--in trench coat, shades, and a fedora.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2010

(2) K-3 Jack builds an airplane from a kit for his "best toy pal," Captain Sky Blue. Boy and toy become separated after Sky's plane is struck by lightning. Sky parachutes out, falling into a place he recognizes. Egielski's art-deco depiction of Santa's workshop includes an elegant sleigh, whose piloting Sky takes over. Airplane aficionados or not, listeners will thrill to this exciting tale.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2010

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Jules Feiffer. An ogre meets his match in a fearless girl who treats him as an honored visitor and offers some sensible advice: "I'll bet if you brushed your teeth...[and] changed your attitude you'd be quite nice." Feiffer draws the girl with a delicate pen and limns the clumsy oaf in broad strokes. Word-maven Juster employs the ogre's "impressive vocabulary" to colorful advantage.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2010

(3) PS Illustrated by Chris Raschka. The star of 2006 Caldecott Medal–winner The Hello, Goodbye Window returns to explain her (age-appropriate) mood swings, which her grandparents readily acknowledge when she visits: "Who is it, Sourpuss or Sweetie Pie?" Young readers will identify with a child who speaks their language ("I don't like orange juice with pieces in it") and soak up the unbridled, color-splattered art.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Brock Cole. Pampered Lhasa apso Gulliver is horrified to be dumped at the humble home of Carlos the doorman. Still, he makes new friends and eventually lands in a satisfactory place--but not before surviving an odyssey from Queens to Paris and back. Like Seidler's characterizations, Cole's drawings of comically diverse canines and humans in action are marvelously affectionate and satirical.

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

(1) 4-6 When failed pirate Jack's mates set him ashore, he washes up in a congenial boardinghouse. He turns down every proposal about making a living, explaining why with tales from an eventful past. Jack's audience is charmed by his fantastical characters, as readers will be by the author's sweetly ironical voice--colloquial, studded with deliciously unexpected words, and exquisitely honed.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2007

(2) PS Paper engineering by Matthew Reinhart. Scenario by Arthur Yorinks. A mad scientist's laboratory provides the setting for this elaborately constructed pop-up collaboration with a sweet and simple premise. A young boy in blue jammies descends into this ostensible den of horrors to look for his mother; along the way he defangs a succession of horror-movie staples. The consummate staging of this production doesn't mask the mischief at its heart.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2006