Chloe Zoe, the little elephant, remembers  making special cupcakes, a heart wand, and fancy paper flowers last year for Valentine’s Day. This year, Chloe Zoe’s class made shoe box mailboxes. Chloe Zoe has a valentine for all her classmates. She is making three extra special ones for her two best friends and teacher. When it is Chloe Zoe’s turn to hand out her valentines, George’s is missing. Tears form in her eyes. The entire class helps her look for it. George tells Chloe Zoe, ” ‘ You and Mary Margaret are my best friends. I know that even without a special valentine.’ ” Just then, Mary Margaret finds George’s special valentine stuck to the bottom of Chloe Zoe’s backpack from all of the glue she’d used. Everyone cheers.

Jane Smith’s artwork is simple yet strikingly intricate, too.  The brightly colored solid blanket on the bed has stripes where it is turned down by the pillows. Half of the valentines are solid color with black outline, while the other half each have a unique design. Chloe Zoe’s ears are patterned with diamond stars and white polka dots, while the rest of her body is a solid yellow. Each elephant has a different pattern on their ears. The balance between solids and patterns is very pleasing to the eye!

Chloe Zoe, the elephant, is celebrating all the secular customs of Easter. Chloe Zoe is sure she will find the special golden egg this year at the park’s Easter egg hunt. Her friends each have a particular item they want to find at the egg hunt.  Mary Margaret, the crocodile, wants only  pink eggs, her favorite color. Later, when Mary Margaret’s basket is still empty Chloe Zoe gives her pink egg to Mary Margaret. “After all, I think, there’s still plenty of time to find the golden egg.” George, the giraffe, and Chloe Zoe help Mary Margaret find pink eggs. Then, Mary Margaret finds the gold egg and Chloe Zoe’s “cheeks get hot”. Chloe Zoe’s mother comforts her with, ” ‘look at all the goodies you did find– eggs, toys, and candy!’ ” Chloe Zoe realizes, ” ‘ I am having a lot of fun, especially finding pink eggs for Mary Margaret…’ “.    When Mary Margaret opens the golden egg there are three sparkling gold coins, ” Three coins for three best friends.”

Looking forward to reading It’s Valentine’s Day, Chloe Zoe! to see if it has as wonderful a message about friendship as this book’s.

Jane Smith’s artwork is simple yet strikingly intricate, too.  The brightly colored solid pink blanket on the bed has pink stripes where it is turned down by the pillows. Half of the colored Easter eggs are solid colors with black outline, while the other half each have a unique design. Chloe Zoe’s ears are patterned with diamond stars and white polka dots, while the rest of her body is a solid yellow. Each elephant has a different pattern on their ears and each giraffe has a different pattern for their spots. The balance between solids and patterns is very pleasing to the eye!

It’s a book about digging your way out of a bad mood.  Child-like art accompanies the tale of a girl’s giant bear helping her accomplish her to-do list, which includes such things as driving to the moon, polishing stars, and finding a baby unicorn.  If you do decide to purchase a copy for your library, I would recommend either finding a library-bound copy or settling for a paperback, since the publisher’s hardcover is sewn so loosely it’s going to fall apart quickly.

It definitely has the cuteness factor going for it:  full of fluffy baby animals with over-sized heads and big eyes.  It’s not really a book to be read to self — it’s really intended as a book for a parent to read to a small child:  it’s a litany of, “Next to you, the softest puppy in the world is only kind of cute,” and more of that ilk.  It would get a certain amount of traffic in a school library just because of the cuteness factor, but it seems more like a book you give as a gift at a baby shower.

I love this illustrator’s artwork.  There’s something charming and enchanting about it that draws  the reader in.  The story is somewhat Velveteen-Rabbit-esque, telling the tale of a boy whose family doesn’t believe his beloved stuffed lion is real, even though he’s sure he is.  When they’re out for a walk one day, the lion gets left behind.  The family searches high and low when they get home, but must postpone their search until the next day when it gets too late.  A wordless sequence in the middle shows the lion in the woods, found by some other animals who help him find his way home.  When morning dawns and the family’s search resumes, Leo is found in the bushes right outside the front door, much to the surprise of everyone who insists they’d looked in just that spot the night before.  I will confess there are some elements to the artwork that I don’t completely “get”: a coffee pot and cups in the bushes? and crowns floating over the heads of all the people, also floating over the heads of the animals at night but not during the day?  But I think that’s okay, in fact I think it makes the artwork more compelling to leave it open to discussion/interpretation/possibilities.

It’s obviously the sequel to The Boss Baby, which I’ve never read, but would like to get, base on the recommendation of this book.  The illustrations and text work together to tell the tale of the arrival of a new baby sister, from the perspective of the toddler big brother, who is used to being the boss, but is finding himself displaced, that is, until baby sister manages to wrap him around her little finger.  It’s fun, and a fresh twist on the new-baby-in-the-home theme.  For librarians who have parents who might object to such things, you should be aware that the illustrations include mom breast-feeding baby (or providing “organic catering service”), toddler stripping down and peeing in the flowers (backside view), and parents sipping martinis together when peace is restored to the household.

A cute reminder that art is in the eye of the beholder. When a hippo is impressed by a mouse’s painting of the sea, he asks to have his own portrait painted.  After posing very carefully, he is very impressed with the mouse-sized paper that gets painted solid gray because that’s all of him that would fit on the paper.  When they swap roles, and the hippo paints a portrait of the mouse, it turns out like a tiny dot in the middle of the paper, with which mouse is delighted.

It’s not getting a high recommendation, but there is a certain population of library patrons who will eat this up, for the illustrations alone, loaded as they are with pink and purple and rainbows and unicorns and princesses and sparkles and a mermaid, too.  Frankie, a fan of fairy tales, is surprised one day to find a princess in her bedroom, seeking refuge from a witch.  As soon as she gets the princess hidden under her bed, the unicorn arrives, also needing someplace to hide.  After Frankie has hidden the mermaid and the knight and the king and the frog, the witch arrives, and though Frankie does her best to keep her new friends’ secrets, the witch’s broom rounds up them all, but it’s okay in the end, because it turns out they’re just playing hide and seek, and Frankie gets to be “it” next.

A sweet, comforting, reassuring book to remind small children that there are grown ups in the world to keep them safe when storms rage.  Rhyming couplets and charming illustrations describe a series of young animals being protected by their grown ups while a storm rages:   the moles snuggling  close under ground and touching noses, the duckling under mama’s wing, the rabbits cozy in their burrow, etc… On the final page the puppy is reassured that, “A storm will always end.”

” The creators of the internationally bestselling Bear Snores On Karma Wilson & Jane Chapman” bring us Big Bear, Small Mouse. These two friends meet and greet pairs of their woodland friends on the way to Bear’s den. These pair of friends is compared presenting the reader with a set of ‘opposites’ which are visually reinforced through the colorful artwork: small – big, slow-fast, high-low, quiet-loud, and cold-warm.