We Will Find Your Hat!: An Early Reader Review

Get ready for Hat Day, the hattiest day of the year.

Reddie is very excited to have some hat-tastic fun with her friend, Archie. But Archie has a problem. He can’t find his favorite hat!

Archie’s home is filled with a lot of things that could be hats (or drums, or pizza) but where is his favorite hat? in We Will Find Your Hat! (2021) by Candy James.

Find it on Bookshop.

We Will Find Your Hat! is the second book in a new early reader series by the wife-and-husband team of Candy (illustrator) and James (author). The characters are inspired by their daughter’s real life plush toys which saw her through many adventures.

This series straddles the line between early reader and graphic novel. The story includes full-page and double page spreads as well as smaller (comic book style) panels to showcase different scenes and add motion to the illustrations. The page design and a background palette featuring shades of green add interest to the book and give We Will Find Your Hat! a unique feel.

The text in the story is all dialog presented in speech bubbles (white for Archie and orange for Reddie) making the style reminiscent to Willem’s Elephant and Piggie series–this is also an element that stays consistent across books. Fans of the hat-related humor in Jon Klassen’s Hat picture books will find the same energy and wackiness here.

Archie’s unearthing of numerous hat adjacent objects adds humor to the story and is sure to encourage conversation about what items young readers might want to repurpose themselves.

We Will Find Your Hat! is another fun installment that proves two heads (and many hats) are better than one.

*An advance e-copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

I Really Dig Pizza!: An Early Reader Review

What could be luckier than finding a gift-wrapped pizza in the forest? Archie certainly doesn’t know. Thrilled with his luck, the quick-thinking fox grabs a nearby digger and buries the pizza to keep it safe until dinner.

Unfortunately right when Archie is ready to dig in, Reddie announces that she is solving a mystery. A mystery involving a new pile of dirt and digger tracks.

Reddie is undeterred by Archie’s efforts to derail the investigation. But will following the clues end with a solved mystery and a shared dinner? And who lost the pizza in the first place in I Really Dig Pizza! (2021) by Candy James.

Find it on Bookshop.

I Really Dig Pizza! is the first book in a new early reader series by the wife-and-husband team of Candy (illustrator) and James (author). The characters are inspired by their daughter’s real life plush toys which saw her through many adventures.

This book straddles the line between early reader and graphic novel. The story includes full-page and double page spreads as well as smaller (comic book style) panels to showcase different scenes and add motion to the illustrations. The page design and a color palette featuring orange, yellow , white, and peach add interest to the book and give I Really Dig Pizza! a unique feel. The color scheme is also a fun reference to the fact that both characters are foxes although I admit Archie looks more feline to me.

The text in the story is all dialog presented in speech bubbles (white for Archie and orange for Reddie) making the style reminiscent to Willem’s Elephant and Piggie series. While there is some conflict in the story as Archie tries to distract Reddie from her investigation, all is resolved by the end when (spoiler) readers learn that Reddie had bought the pizza for Archie only to lose it before she could add a gift card.

Panels with Archie asking readers questions and breaking the fourth wall of the story to draw them in add an interactive element to this book as do Archie’s attempted diversions as he explains to Reddie that the digger noises must be a storm, the digger tracks are actually snake tracks, and so on.

I Really Dig Pizza! is a fun early reader with fast friends and plenty of humor (and pizza) that’s sure to garner a few laughs from young readers.

*An advance e-copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

Bunbun and Bonbon: Fancy Friends: An Early Reader Review

Bunbun has it all: a delightful bunbun nose, a bunbun smile, bunbun ears, and even a fluffy bunbun tail.

What Bunbun does not have is a friend.

All of that changes when an unassuming rock turns out to be … Bonbon.

Bonbon has a purple candy shell, a sugary candy body, and two sparkling candy eyes.

Together, this unlikely pair becomes fancy friends as they don bowties and top hats, eat fancy foods, and prepare for a fancy party in Bunbun and Bonbon: Fancy Friends (2020) by Jess Keating.

Find it on Bookshop.

Bunbun and Bonbon: Fancy Friends is the first book in a new series of graphic novels perfect for the youngest comics fans and early readers. Large panels and bold text for the story and speech bubbles make the story sequencing easy to follow whether being read aloud or independently.

Keating’s illustrations are bold and colorful bringing Bunbun and Bonbon’s fancy world to life with clean backgrounds that convey the setting without cluttering the panels. A limited vocabulary also makes the story easy to follow while introducing new words (notably bonbon among others) throughout. The story broken into chapters that can be read as self-contained stories or all at once.

Bunbun and Bonbon: Fancy Friends is everything I never knew I always wanted in a story. Bright artwork, clever dialog, and gentle stories come together to make this series a standout for readers of any age. Perfect for fans of Elephant and Piggie, Toon Books, and Geisel award winners.

Ivy and Bean: A (younger) Chick Lit Wednesday Review

Bean does not want to be friends with Ivy. Her mother keeps telling her that Ivy seems like a very nice girl, but Bean knows what that means. Nice means prim and proper and sitting quietly reading big books. Nice means boring.

At least, Bean thought Ivy was boring. When she plays a trick on her big sister and Ivy offers a quick hiding place, Bean isn’t so sure. Nice is supposed to be boring. And Ivy does seem nice. But she’s also training to be a witch. Besides, how nice can anyone be who has a vast supply of face paint, her own wand, and a spell that involves lots of worms?

Bean and Ivy didn’t plan to be friends, but they might be a perfect match in Ivy and Bean (2006) by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall (illustrator).

Find it on Bookshop.

Ivy and Bean is the first book in the series which is very popular with younger readers. The text is not as advanced as the Clementine or Ramona books but the characters all have similar qualities that will appeal to readers looking for girls with spunk. This story was not as compelling, for me, as the Clementine series but it was a fun fast read that will work for young readers and reluctant readers. Blackall’s illustrations add a lot of appeal with her delightfully horrifying pictures of Bean’s horrible older sister and Ivy’s wonderfully scary witch attire.

There are some surprisingly vocal negative reviews (seen on Amazon) accusing the book of promoting everything from bad behavior to witchcraft. To such concerns all I can say is books don’t make ill-behaved children anymore than guns kill people all on their own. At its core Ivy and Bean is nothing more and nothing less than a sharp book about two singularly creative girls who are ready and willing to make their own fun be it with pranks or a new friendship.