cover image My Friends Make Me Happy!

My Friends Make Me Happy!

Jan Thomas. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $9.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-544-96655-0

“Yay! Look who’s coming! My friends!” cheers Sheep on the title page of this high-energy addition to Thomas’s Giggle Gang series. After Donkey, Bear, and Duck show up, Sheep drops a question on them: “Can you guess what makes me happy?” Readers will probably infer the answer from the book’s title, but the other animals are stumped, even after Sheep hints that the answer begins with an F. (“Turnips!” shouts Duck, not getting it at all.) Thanks to mounting frustration at all of the wrong guesses, Sheep looks as frazzled as can be while eventually yelling “My friends make me happy!” As always, Thomas’s thick-lined cartooning brings over-the-top emotion to each scene: readers young and old will recognize the truth that friendship can be both wonderful and exhausting. Simultaneously available: My Toothbrush Is Missing. Ages 4–7. (Jan.)