The winning animal crew from Hooray for Hat! (2014) is back, this time celebrating the joy each day (or night) brings when in the company of friends.It's nighttime, and Owl is ready to play. One by one, she wakes her diurnal friends with an exuberant, "HOORAY FOR TODAY!"—to which each responds, "NOT NOW. I'M SLEEPY!" Gently, she lulls them with the toy and love she brings. In one last attempt for a playmate, Owl hoots her lines to the stars. A wordless spread humorously conveys how long she goes unanswered, as the sun appears before an amethyst sky. Dejecte...

Following Fire Engine No. 9 (2015), Austin looks at maritime emergency vehicles.In Austin' s second No. 9 book, the youngest readers find a gripping, exciting ocean rescue conducted by a mixed-race, mixed-gender team using intriguing vehicles and tools: helicopter and boat, with assists from the lighthouse and trucks on the dock. The crew seems to be going through its ordinary duties when the weather changes and a distress call comes in.

The text is minimal: words repeat and appear in typeface that increases in size to convey urgency: "MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY...

Dewey Dew's first day of school might look an awful lot like most kids', though it's a pretty safe bet they aren't extraterrestrials. Dewey Dew is blue, has one eye and an antennalike appendage on his head, and is from Planet Eight Hundred Seventy-Two Point Nine. But for his first day of school, he is heading, reluctantly, for Earth and Mrs. Brightsun's School for Little Learners. But nothing there looks, feels, or sounds quite right to Dewey Dew: his new "Earth shoes pinched his oofs," and he dorfles just a little, though "he was pretty sure he was much to...

A young ninja seeks a worthy opponent, but his family is too busy to play.Chung (Ninja!, 2014) returns with a second comic-book-style tale about lovable, freckled-faced ninja Maxwell. Ready to tackle a challenger, Maxwell seeks an adversary in one of his family members. His mother is preparing dinner. His younger sister, Cassy, would rather play with her blocks. His father absentmindedly agrees to play hide-and-seek with him but forgets to look for Maxwell. Frustrated and bored, Maxwell meditates to find inner peace—unsuccessfully. When his mother calls him...

How do you get a chimp to sleep? An appealing towheaded white child in striped pajamas negotiates for bedtime with a wide-eyed pet chimp in this humorous, straightforward, near-wordless story. Colorful pictures with just the right amount of detail energetically depict these charming characters as they tease, scold, and frolic. Young children will delight at the assignment of roles—it's the child who says it's time to sleep—as the chimp mischievously insists on staying up to play with toys, juggle, and even hang upside down. The minimal vocabulary—the text...

A French bulldog narrates a simple but charming story about the activities of his day with a parallel look at similar behavior by his human companion, Sis.

The dog and the preschool-aged girl are sleeping in bed together as the day dawns, with ribbons of ZZZZs entwined around them to emphasize their somnolent state. Bold, stylized illustrations in neon-bright colors use simple shapes, varied type treatments, and creative labeling to show the differences and similarities in the actions of canine and child. Some spreads illustrate the dog and girl meeting ne...

When her mom and all her brothers are trapped in a bucket, it's time for Teeny Tiny Toady to screw her courage to the sticking place and hop to the rescue. As big of eyes, personality, and emotion as she is tiny and pink of body in Yamaguchi's swampy ground-level scenes, Teeny is "toadally" terrific. Shoved to the rear by her seven hulking brothers after bursting through the door with the news of their mother's plight, Teeny hops behind, "wishing she could be a bigger, stronger, / hero kind of toad." Then, when her comically dim-bulb brothers not only fail...

A teen who deals drugs to pay for his twin sister's college tuition is introduced to a mysterious hallucinogen he's never before encountered. High school senior Finn, with a scar on his face that "distinguishes [him] from every other white dude," is a master at charming his way into and out of most situations. Though he's highly intelligent, with an almost-encyclopedic knowledge of nature, particularly of ornithology, he's developed a rough exterior that allows him to finesse his way in school, with girls, and in the drug world. Though it's for the benefit...