Barney Saltzberg, . . Dell/Dragonfly, $6.99 (40pp) ISBN 978-0-440-41758-3
In a starred review, PW
called this a "hyperbolic portrait of an uncommonly spirited soccer mom. This soccer sortie scores high in hilarity." Ages 5-8. (June)
Hop, a white rabbit, intends to dress as a pumpkin for Halloween. He doesn't want Hip, a pink hippo, to steal his idea. Hip agrees to be a pirate instead of a pumpkin, but she sulks on the big Continue reading »
Stanley Birdbaum has committed perhaps the worst possible kid faux pas: he has worn a wacky hairstyle to school for Crazy Hair Day-on the wrong day. In fact, it's actually Class Picture Day. Continue reading »
The earnest speaker in this fun story, based on the author’s song of the same title, pleads for a dog, promising that it “will never, ever make a mess” (via a pull tab, she Continue reading »
A celebration of creative thinking, Saltzberg's small-format book encourages readers to view mistakes not as failures but opportunities. To wit, "A torn piece of paper..." (the cardboard page is Continue reading »
What would it feel like to kiss a fuzzy panda cub? Curious toddlers can find out in Barney Saltzberg's Baby Animal Kisses. Each brightly and simply illustrated page presents a baby animal, including Continue reading »
Summer Fun Little ones will enjoy the sturdy paper-over-board offering, Peekaboo Kisses by Barney Saltzberg. In the opening, a kitten covers its eyes (""Peekaboo! I see...""); readers lift the flap Continue reading »
Stanley Birdbaum has committed perhaps the worst possible kid faux pas: he has worn a wacky hairstyle to school for Crazy Hair Day-on the wrong day. In fact, it's actually Class Picture Day. Continue reading »
Cromwell is a puppy who wears clothes, reads aloud to his siblings, drinks milk from a cup and digs with a shovel. An unusual dog, and the artwork portrays him as such; the reader expects a great Continue reading »
Snazzy pictures in delectable springtime hues fortify an easily anticipated story line. Mrs. Morgan is the neighborhood crank: ``Every time a ball lands on her lawn, she keeps it,'' says the Continue reading »
Echoing on-going arguments about literacy, Saltzberg (This Is a Great Place for a Hot Dog Stand) contends that rote learning doesn't work for everyone. Phoebe has a week to prepare for a spelling Continue reading »
When Chez Stew runs out of its specialty, a woman and her white poodle take off with their waiter in search of the desired dish. PW said, ""This stew has flavor enough to sate an appetite for a good Continue reading »
Readers will surely get a kick out of Saltzberg's (The Flying Garbanzos) hyperbolic portrait of an uncommonly spirited soccer mom. The night before Lena's first soccer game, her father announces that Continue reading »
In Barney Saltzberg's Hip, Hip, Hooray Day!: A Hip & Hop Story, the follow-up to The Problem with Pumpkins: A Hip & Hop Story, the titular hippo hopes for a birthday trip to the roller rink. So Continue reading »
Jaunty verse and amusing paper engineering mark this affable if undistinguished effort. (The book's subtitle proves misleading, however: only one of the six spreads contains pop-ups, and those of a Continue reading »
In this mischievous picture book, Saltzberg ( Mrs. Morgan's Lawn ) reminds parents that not every child requires a helping hand even as he encourages young readers to trust their own imaginations. On Continue reading »
The only thing certain about Izzy-a pastel-blue, bipedal thingamajig with a light-yellow horn on his snout-is that he loves hot dogs. Quitting his factory job, he builds a hot dog cart and, after Continue reading »
When the Flying Garbanzos throw a birthday party for two-year-old Beanie, they don't need to rent a clown or circus animals. A trapeze already hangs from their kitchen ceiling, and an elephant, seal Continue reading »
In this chunky pop-up book, Arlo, a shaggy yellow dog, requires a trip to the optometrist after he has trouble playing catch with his bespectacled owner. Saltzberg introduces the process of getting Continue reading »
Wordplay of the title aside, Saltzberg’s ode to drawing is fairly earnest and straightforward in its prose. The magic comes from the accompanying artwork, which follows the eponymous boy and his Continue reading »
Saltzberg builds on the inspirational advice of Beautiful Oops! in a companion book that is encouraging without being cloying. A plain-Jane opening spread that reads “Make something ordinary” reveals Continue reading »
This deceptively simple story takes something classic—an afternoon tea party between a girl and her grandfather—and tweaks it for a generation raised on touch screens. Saltzberg’s (A Little Bit of Continue reading »
A small panda attempts to fall sleep in this humorous, subdued bedtime story. Chengdu is the only animal awake in his bamboo grove: “Chengdu turned and he tossed and he twitched,” writes Saltzberg Continue reading »
The covers of Saltzberg’s (Beautiful Oops!) book are imagined as a binding for three homemade books by fictional siblings Seymour, Fiona, and Wilbur. Sized according to birth order (Wilbur’s Continue reading »
Saltzberg (Inside This Book) uses the title question to upend stereotypes as he contrasts the proclivities of a young redheaded princess with those of a good-natured dragon. Photographic Continue reading »
Saltzberg (Crazy Hair Day) handily captures the difficulty of making a friend—even one that’s right around the corner—in this brief interlude. Though “Dog was fine being alone,” he sometimes Continue reading »
Saltzberg (Dog and Rabbit) puts a winsome spin on the spot-the-difference concept while sending, with humor, the missive that diversity and collaboration are to be unequivocally celebrated. Continue reading »
Saltzberg offers a comedic take on a fable-like situation: a goat, a pig, a cat, and a dog set off in a rowboat together. What follows is a series of questions in the first-person plural that present Continue reading »
Two friends mount an ongoing creativity challenge in this collaborative picture book. When “she” takes a photograph of something ordinary that seems ripe with imaginative possibilities, “he” adds Continue reading »
The waiting is the hardest part for a young elephant eagerly anticipating a new arrival in Saltzberg’s tender picture book. As brief text suggests things the siblings will lovingly do and share in Continue reading »
A small blue mouse walks onto an opening page of this picture book looking to find the volume’s story. Instead, it discovers a larger gray mouse wearing a blissful expression. When pressed, the Continue reading »
The Smell of Wet Dog: And Other Dog Poems and Drawings
Barney Saltzberg
In this collection of 27 poems, Saltzberg (A Delicious Story) employs both canine and human perspectives to explore the age-old cross-species connection—a relationship characterized by a Continue reading »
How Many Elephants?: A Lift-The-Flap Counting Book
Selby Beeler
How Many Elephants? A Lift-the-Flap Counting Book by Selby Beeler, illus. by Barney Saltzberg, begins with a self-possessed toddler answering the question ""How many elephants are in your Continue reading »
A child grieving a move to a new
apartment narrates this musing moment-by-moment story by Newbery Medalist Stead, making her picture book debut. Zhang (Emergency Quarters) Continue reading »
Are You a Friend of Dorothy? The True Story of an Imaginary Woman and the Real People She Helped
Kyle Lukoff
Straightforwardly detailing how LGBTQ+ people have long found each other via verbal and visual cues, this approachable, engaging work is a primer on both queer history and how Continue reading »
Everyone wants to know what famous tech magnate Hugo Harrison’s next invention will be. That is, except for rising high school senior Eleanor Diamond, who’s only interested in Continue reading »
Featuring 15 authors and illustrators, including Nikki Grimes, Kyle Lukoff, and Traci Sorell, this necessary anthology—comprising fiction, memoir, poetry, comics, essays, and Continue reading »