ALA Booklist (Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2016)

Kelsey looks forward to the warm days and cold nights of spring, when she and her father tap the maple trees and hang buckets to collect the sap. More than a dozen family and friends, a racially diverse group, gather to help with the work and, later, to enjoy the fire outside the sugarhouse through the long night, talking and dozing while the sap slowly boils down into syrup. Then they spring into action again, filling bottles and eating a breakfast feast together. Detail-oriented kids will enjoy watching the tree-to-table syrup-making process, with terms like spiles, evaporator, and sugar gauge introduced in context. Others will respond to the girl's happiness, rooted in this annual ritual, a purposeful communal gathering filled with good work and good cheer. The text offers a light narrative framework with just enough detail to satisfy the curiosity of most listeners, while an appended note offers more information on maple syrup. Simple, colorful, and attractive, Mitter's illustrations create a tone of contentment that makes this an attractive choice for reading aloud.

Horn Book (Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

Kelsey is excited for sap run season. She assists her dad through the harvesting process; the event requires a lot of waiting, but the story makes it feel like a days-long party with many helpers. The writing can be syrupy ("singing their ting-a-ling drip, drop song"), but in the eye-catching illustrations, bright winter clothes pop against soft, snowy forest backgrounds. Additional facts appended.

Kirkus Reviews

A group of family and friends performs the chores in the sugar bush that lead to fresh maple syrup. It's not just collecting sap and boiling it: bottles must be sterilized, wood gathered and stacked, the sugar content of the boiling syrup monitored, and the finished syrup filtered and bottled. As young Kelsey follows her father around the wood, it's clear this isn't her first exposure to this northeastern spring ritual, though this is belied by didactic and expository dialogue, as when Daddy explains how the trees have stored sugar over the winter. Kelsey's chores are kid-appropriate: hammering spiles, hanging buckets, stacking and carrying wood, and curiously peeking and asking about the syrup's readiness as it boils. The boiling goes on all night and into the next morning, when the family enjoys a maple syrup-centered breakfast while waiting for the sap buckets to fill again. Mitter's illustrations play up the camaraderie of working together. Skin tones range from Kelsey's own white skin to light and dark browns in this multiracial gathering. While the tractor and single storage tank indicate that this is not a large-scale operation, the evaporator and dedicated sugar shack mean this isn't just a hobby, either. The final page includes more facts about maple syrup. Readers with maples get ready: kids are sure to want to try their hands at boiling their own syrup. (Picture book. 3-9)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

A girl named Kelsey joins her father and other family and friends when the time is right to harvest sap and turn it into maple syrup. Knowlton gives Kelsey a chipper narrative voice, which is matched by the bright colors and friendly interactions in Mitter-s illustrations. While informative, the descriptions of how syrup is produced lead to some dry moments in the book (-Daddy starts the pump to suction the tap through a filter into a large holding tank,- notes Kelsey). But both the text and the art make clear how much work goes into producing maple syrup, how slow the process is, and how a community comes together to get the job done. A closing list of facts should intrigue readers who can-t imagine eating their pancakes without a good glug of syrup. Ages 5-7. Author-s agent: Victoria Selvaggio, Jennifer De Chiara Literary. (Nov.)