Say Hello Like This!

In this cheery companion to 2012’s A Kiss Like This, Murphy explores the sounds that six animals make (with a few extra cows and geese thrown in on the title page, complete with their own moos and honks). As in the previous book, a playful format featuring half-pages inserted into each spread suggests a guessing game. Murphy describes an animal’s style of greeting on the left-hand page (“A cat hello is prissy and proud...”), after which readers turn the half page to reveal a slightly different scene featuring the animals as they greet each other, along with the remainder of the text ( “like this! purrrrrr... meow”). From “flappy and clucky” chicken salutations to the “tiny and tappy” introductions beetles make, fun-to-say words dance across the ample white background space. The sweetly silly cast of boldly outlined, wide-eyed animals—including a pair of exuberant leaping frogs and two toothy donkeys wearing goofy floral hats—comes together for a colorful, cacophonous splash at the book’s end as they encourage readers to chime in with a big “Hello!” of their own. Ages 2–5. (Feb.)