George Hallowell and Joan Holub, illus. by Lynne Avril. Albert Whitman, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8075-8612-9
What do a farm girl in 1846 and her 21st-century, cellphone-using counterpart have in common? When their respective families announce they're moving from Missouri to Oregon, both face some of the biggest challenges of their lives. Jenny, the pioneer
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Joan Holub, Author Aladdin Paperbacks $9.99 (160p) ISBN 978-0-689-83911-5
Colin Thompson's enigmatic artwork once again takes center stage in Falling Angels, the story of a girl who can fly. Sally thinks she's the only one who possesses this power but soon finds out her grandmother once flew, too. (Hutchinson [Trafalgar
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Joan Holub, Author Little Simon $7.99 (22p) ISBN 978-0-689-85061-5
Joan Holub uses humor to answer the question, What Can Our New Baby Do?, which places a pie-faced newborn in wacky situations, and uses a flap to return the baby and its older brother to reality. ""What will our new baby eat? Polar bears? Hopping
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Joan Holub, illus. by Daniel Roode. S&S/Little Simon, $7.99 (26p) ISBN 978-1-4814-5850-4
Holub (the Mini Myths series) gives a (very) light overview of 10 U.S. presidents, including Washington, Jefferson, Kennedy, and Obama. Enthusiastic rhymes pair with South Park–y cartoons from Roode (Glasses to Go), as well as tidbits about each man
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Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams, S&S/Aladdin, $5.99 paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-4169-8271-5
In the first book in Holub and Williams's Goddess Girls series, which places Greek myths in a playful, modern context, 12-year-old Athena has been raised on Earth, where she never quite fit in due to her superior intellect and unusual abilities,...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Jan Smith. Albert Whitman, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8075-6660-2
A class of children who are prone to speaking in rhyme visit the pumpkin patch in a story that counts down from 20—
and presents multiple counting opportunities on each page. Throughout, Holub rhymes the characters’ lines with their names (“ ‘Eightee
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Joan Holub, illus. by James Dean. Scholastic Press, $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-545-60968-5
“Like father, like son” holds true even when Dad and Junior are heavy-duty construction equipment. “Dump Truck Sturdy/ teaches Dumpy to get dirty/ They go fill, drive, dump,” writes Holub (Little Red Writing), as Pete the Cat creator Dean shows a...
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Joan Holub, illus. by James Dean. Scholastic Press, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-545-68520-7
Holub and Dean, the team behind Mighty Dads, hammer home a message of cooperation in a story about five tools that learn to work together. After each tool—a hammer, pair of pliers, saw, screw driver, and tape measure—introduces itself, it’s off to...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Melissa Sweet. Chronicle, $16.99 (36p) ISBN 978-0-8118-7869-2
Balanced gracefully on her point, Little Red is a courageous young pencil with a storytelling assignment from school. While the other young pencils choose to write about “Pencilvania” or themes based on their novelty erasers, Little Red decides to...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Scott Magoon. Holt/Ottaviano, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8050-9932-4
Holub and Magoon get medieval on Clement Clark Moore’s classic holiday poem. Three knights stand guard in their castle on Christmas Eve, defending against any invaders—including Santa. Santa lays siege (“dozens of sugarplums/ rained down on their...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Leslie Patricelli. Abrams Appleseed, $6.95 (24p) ISBN 978-1-4197-1677-5
In the fifth entry in the Mini Myths series, a young Icarus proves just as reckless as his mythological forebear. This time around, though, the worst that happens is that Icarus spills some paint and gets his kite stuck in a tree after he tries to...
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Joan Holub, Author, Joan Holub, Illustrator Little Simon $4.99 (12p) ISBN 978-0-689-85157-5
Love unfolds in an array of interactive Valentine's Day titles. Part of the Fuzzy Board Book series, the die-cut, touch-and-feel Somebunny Loves Me by Joan Holub celebrates love in the animal kingdom, with rhyming couplets and fuzzy patches on...
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Holub's (I Have a Weird Brother Who Digested a Fly) book looks as if it's going to move Cinderella to cowboy country ("Yee-haw! Way out west, near a ripsnortin' town you never heard of..."), but it turns out to be a moral tale...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Tom Lichtenheld. Holt/Ottaviano, $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8050-9384-1
This story about the concept of zero recalls both Lichtenheld’s recent E-mergency and Kathryn Otoshi’s Zero (2010). Like the former, it features walking, talking written characters (digits, in this case, rather than letters), accompanied by...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Leslie Patricelli. Abrams Appleseed, $6.95 (24p) ISBN 978-1-4197-0951-7
In one of two titles launching the Mini Myths series, Goddess Girls author Holub presents less a retelling of the story of Pandora than a modern (and entirely delightful) twist on it. Instructed by her mother not to open a neatly wrapped box,...
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Joan Holub, Author, Benrei Huang, Author, Holub Regan, Illustrator Puffin Books $6.99 (16p) ISBN 978-0-14-240000-5
Dragon Dance: A Chinese New Year Lift-the-Flap Book by Joan Holub, illus. by Benrei Huang, tells how Chinese families celebrate the New Year with special foods, gifts of money tucked into red envelopes for good luck, fireworks and parades with ...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Caroline Jayne Church. Scholastic/Cartwheel, $8.99 (14p) ISBN 978-0-545-34968-0
Readers can engage with this sunny board book by maneuvering a hand-shaped flap attached to the back cover, in seven scenes. Gently lifting the hand up and down makes a blonde girl softly pat a puppy. Elsewhere, a boy blows a kiss with the hand, and
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Joan Holub, Author, Ken Wilson-Max, Illustrator Puffin Books $6.99 (16p) ISBN 978-0-14-230199-9
Emily the bunny celebrates in her seventh lift-the-flap book, Merry Christmas, Emily! by Claire Masurel, illus. by Susan Calitri. The publisher uses an identical lift-the-flap format for the informative Kwanzaa title, Kwanzaa Kids by Joan Holub,
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Joan Holub, Author, Jennifer Beck Harris, Illustrator HarperFestival $5.99 (24p) ISBN 978-0-06-008091-4
Rollicking quatrains and charming animal characters will attract young readers to the quirky holiday etiquette board book Turkeys Never Gobble! by Joan Holub, illus. by Jennifer Beck Harris. A sample: ""Rhinos never run/ around the table and act...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Daniel Roode. Little Simon, $7.99 (26p) ISBN 978-1-5344-7558-8
Holub’s latest board book primer introduces youngest readers to a diverse international cast of 10 “little environmentalists”—including Indian scholar and food sovereignty advocate Vandana Shiva and Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg—who serve the
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Joan Holub, illus. by Laurie Keller. Crown, $17.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-525-64528-3
They may be known as the Great White Shark, but when the protagonist of this finny compendium tries to assert their supremacy as “The Greatest Shark in this book,” they run into some stiff opposition. Challengers include the Whale Shark and the...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Alison Farrell. Penguin/Paulsen, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-17225-0
The two silhouetted kids who appear on a school crossing sign take their job very seriously. Now summer’s here, and has anyone thanked them for the important job of keeping students safe? Nope. “I feel kind of underappreciated,” says one to the...
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Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams, illus.
by Toby Allen. Aladdin, $17.99 (96p) ISBN 978-1-66591-771-1
Shenanigans ensue as mythical creatures attend school for the first time in this cozy chapter book series launch by collaborators Holub and Williams (the Little Goddess Girls series). Young Pegasus is excited for his first day at the School for...
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Joan Holub, illus. by Rafael Rosado. Random House, $14.99 (144p) ISBN 978-0-5934-3430-7
“Our story begins deep in the bowels of the evil institoot in Professor Groovypants’s secret laboratory,” intones the omniscient narrator of this goofy graphic novel, as Groovypants and sidekick Egor stand before the Phart-Maker-5000—a bean-fueled,...
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