It’s cheesy.  The characters have kid bodies and giant baseballs for heads.  They’re each named after a different kind of ball (Sammy Softball, Connie Curveball, etc.), and each character’s personality traits/powers resemble the term they’re named after (e.g. the Foul Ball gang are the bullies).  The kids who are old enough to know enough about baseball to appreciate the sport references are going to think the illustrations are babyish and the story rather lame, and the kids young enough to enjoy the illustrations and the predictable plot are not going to get the baseball terms.

A short simple story, with only a sentence or so per page, it’s definitely intended for the youngest audiences.  While everyone else is busy with things to do around the yard, a young boy goes off to play pirate with his stuffed raccoon, including snitching his sister’s stuffed bunny, who ends up in the lake.  After returning the sopping bunny and facing the music, the bunny goes missing again, for which the boy gets blamed.  Over the course of the afternoon and evening the boy’s toys also go missing, and if the reader is watching the illustrations, they see that a real raccoon is the culpret, which the boy discovers in the morning, declaring the sneaky raccoon to be a real troublemaker.  Very young readers will enjoy knowing that they know things the characters don’t.

A gold emblem on the cover proclaims, “Celebrating 25 years of Katie!”  It’s published in Australia and set in London, so perhaps there are children in one or both of those countries who would know who Katie is, but unfortunately, there’s nothing in the book to give us any background on who Katie is or why we’re supposed to celebrate her.  The story opens with Katie and her grandmother visiting London’s National Gallery, and when Grandma needs to rest she sends Katie off to explore on her own. The plot consists of Katie ignoring the “Please do not touch” signs and jumping into one famous painting after another, snatching a piece of pie from one, sharing a cup of tea in another, playing with another child in another, playing with a tiger, and falling through an abstract before being rescued by the museum guard.  I’m sure it would make a great souvenir for children visiting this museum, and it might make a good introduction before a class were to take a field trip to a museum.  As a general interest read it’s okay, if perhaps a little flat.

I guess it’s okay.  It’s got a good message it’s trying to convey.  It just left me a little flat.  And the message (“magic must come from within”), though clearly stated in so many words, didn’t really come through the actual story itself, but seemed to be laid over top of the story:  if it hadn’t been deliberately pointed out, I don’t think that would have been the take-away of readers from the events alone.

The story is cute, and kids will enjoy feeling in the know, as they recognize the mistakes the dog is making throughout the story.  Max the dog is asked by the farmer to try to catch a thief who’s been stealing all the carrots, berries, beans and cherries.  After spotting a small blue bug nibbling a leaf, Max sets off to catch it, passing along the way a rabbit, a pig, a goat, and some crows amidst the carrots, berries, beans and cherries, asking each if they’ve seen the thief, never connecting them as possible culprets. After chasing the bug across the entire farm, Max returns to report proudly that he’s scared the thief away for good, and the other animals decide to throw a party to celebrate, gathering and eating the rest of the farm’s produce.  My one criticism has to do with the visuals.  I don’t think I’ve ever found fault with a book’s font before, but there’s something about this one that bothered me:  the color palate of the illustrations is a little on the dark side, and the print is not very big or bold, and sometimes seems to be a bit lost on the page.

A beautiful poem that unites humanity by celebrating all the things we have in common with others across the globe (e.g. ” We’ve work to do and loads to bring, and tales to tell and songs to sing.”)  The text uses the simple pronoun we, but the illustrations show examples of life from all different cultures around the world, showing just how big “we” can be.  I think it’s fabulous!

I’m a huge fan of Chris Van Allsburg, but I was a little bit disappointed with this one (not enough to turn me off Van Allsburg as a rule, but a enough to say there’s no rush to run out and get this one).  At first I didn’t even recognize Van Allsburg’s usually distinctive artwork style — this one is very pastel, lots of pink — turns out he’s got daughters.  The story tells of a rather grumpy hampster who experiences a series of homes: first purchased from the pet store by a girl who soon loses interest, before being sold to a boy whose dog proves to be a bit of a terror; then being handed over to a cousin who liked to dress him up in doll’s clothes and bought him an outdoors exercise ball in which he rolls away.  Found by a girl whose mom doesn’t allow pets, he gets taken to school where he is adopted as a class pet, until the kid responsible for taking care of him over the holiday vacation forgets him on the playground.  Escaping from his cage in some unknown manner, he finds freedom and his true home getting himself adopted into a nest of squirrels. The illustrations are fun, and exhibit Van Allsburg’s effective play with perspective, and all the scenarios are believable problems faced by hamsters, but one hamster facing them all seems a bit extreme, and worse, there’s nothing to really make the reader care about his problems.  It’s a little flat.

It’s a story within a story, with multiple levels of meaning.  The introductory story is of a young mouse who is frightened during a storm, having previously experienced a destructive hurricane; her papa calms her with a story, a nod to the power of books.  The story he shares, told in rhyme, tells of a violent storm that destroys all a rhino holds dear, and the rhino reacts by swallowing the storm, but as a result finds himself alone at the bottom of a very deep hole.  The rest of the story, which involves the other animals helping to rescue Rhino from the hole, coming together to starting putting their world to rights, and counseling Rhino to let go of the storm he’s holding inside, is both a literal and a figurative story, both about communities working together to assist each other after devestation does occur, and about the dangers of holding our emotions bottled up inside.  It’s a comforting story to help young children recognize that bad things do happen, but we’re never really left alone to cope with them.

The big-eyed, big-nosed, brightly colored, cartoonish illustrations will be familiar to students who are fans of Charlie Cook’s Favorite Book, A Gold Star for Zog, the Gruffalo, or any of Scheffler’s other work.  The story, told in rhyme, describes two scarecrows who fall in love and decide to marry.  After wandering the farm to find the things they need for their wedding, Betty stays behind while Harry sets off to find the last thing on their list, pink flowers, and water to keep them fresh.  The search takes Harry longer than he expected, and while he’s gone the farmer builds a new scarecrow to take his place, who goes by the name of Reginald Rake.  Needless to say, Rake proves to be an arrogant cad, who nearly sets Betty on fire when he drops his cigar, but Harry returns just in time with his bucket of water and flowers, which he dumps on the flames to save Betty’s life.  It’s cute.

I am disappointed in Kids Can Press.  I usually like their stuff, but I can’t figure out the  purpose of this book.  It’s a Halloween book, with cute illustrations that will attract children, but story is nothing but gobblety-gook.  I’m a fan of the classic nonsense poem, The Jabberwocky, and Dr. Seuss of course created wonderful books full of made-up words, but this just doesn’t hold together.  It doesn’t even have good rhythm to read aloud smoothly, let alone create any meaning.  Ugh!