Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Acclaimed husband-and-wife team Henkes and Dronzek present an ode to noticing the little things."If you found a little ball on the grass and it was there for days, you could take it home." Using "if" statements like this, similar to those found in beloved books such as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (1985), Henkes relies on far simpler storytelling. The book zeroes in on four objects: a ball, a flower, a box, and a kitten, in that order. With each acquisition, we learn under what circumstances the "you" of the story could take it home (the kitten in particular requires the most caveats), and in the end, the box, flower, and ball all turn out to be things that serve the kitten very well. The final sentence is a succinct, "Everyone would be happy." And everyone is. Using no more words than you might find in a beginning reader, Henkes once again demonstrates his mastery for boiling a story down to its most essential parts. Dronzek depicts a cast of three (a child with lightly tanned skin, a dog, and the small, white kitten); each of her images is compartmentalized into neat boxes and panels, all painted with bright acrylic colors that pop off the page. Each element is as accessible as it is ripe for speculation.Found objects sometimes yield the simplest pleasures. Consider this book one such example. (Picture book. 3-6)

School Library Journal Starred Review (Wed May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

PreS-Gr 2— In a carefully worded script that reads like a sunny morning on slow, Henkes tells what happens when you come across a ball, a flower in the sidewalk, a discarded box, and a kitten. The second-person narration tells you, readers, how to ensure that these objects, having been lost or put aside, can be yours; for example, if you leave the ball where it is for a few days or you ask for a lot of different sorts of permission before taking home the kitten, you may be in the clear. Random choices, these? No, this is a story of simplicity, and what has been found is actually a kitten with a box to sleep in, a ball for it to play with, a flower for it to look at, and a child's arms to hold it. Dronzek's deeply hued, pastel-like illustrations, each a tiny painting that seems to hold its breath in anticipation, culminate steadily till readers find themselves at home with the kitten, perhaps as they always knew they'd be. When a seemingly throwaway piece of text, like an object that is lost, sticks around long enough to turn into a story, that's a picture book. When the illustrations elevate the words the way these do, that's a masterpiece. VERDICT A manual for constructing a contented life, this book makes children look deeper and behave with deliberation. And when they do, Henkes says, they are lucky.— Kimberly Olson Fakih

Kirkus Reviews

Acclaimed husband-and-wife team Henkes and Dronzek present an ode to noticing the little things."If you found a little ball on the grass and it was there for days, you could take it home." Using "if" statements like this, similar to those found in beloved books such as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (1985), Henkes relies on far simpler storytelling. The book zeroes in on four objects: a ball, a flower, a box, and a kitten, in that order. With each acquisition, we learn under what circumstances the "you" of the story could take it home (the kitten in particular requires the most caveats), and in the end, the box, flower, and ball all turn out to be things that serve the kitten very well. The final sentence is a succinct, "Everyone would be happy." And everyone is. Using no more words than you might find in a beginning reader, Henkes once again demonstrates his mastery for boiling a story down to its most essential parts. Dronzek depicts a cast of three (a child with lightly tanned skin, a dog, and the small, white kitten); each of her images is compartmentalized into neat boxes and panels, all painted with bright acrylic colors that pop off the page. Each element is as accessible as it is ripe for speculation.Found objects sometimes yield the simplest pleasures. Consider this book one such example. (Picture book. 3-6)