This book is fine. The illustrations are soft and dreamlike and while the story does rhyme and does have a cadence, that cadence is soft in areas. The story’s about how everyone’s different and that is perfectly OK because everyone is who they were made to be. I like the message in this book and overall it works well. But to me it’s only so so. 

 This book is full of nursery rhymes and poems that are very punny. Each word has something that is a pun that may go over kids heads without some explanation. The book was fun, but by the end it you were happy to see the last page. 

 I freely admit this is a DNF at 50%. I just can’t take it anymore. Fantastic frog and amazing Ted Lad are experiments who have been given super strength and the ability to fly but share a brain between the two of them. I don’t like how the book is constantly using putdowns like dumb and stupid. And while I get that this is for kids, it feels like a grown-up talking down to kids instead of actually getting down on kids levels. It’s also overly long. I do think they should have kept this shorter than 200 pages instead of having two or three stories with an intermission, it should have stopped after they finished the first mission. Because after the first mission, I could not go on anymore. I wanted to like this and somebody will. I just don’t know who that is right now. 

 I love these books. They’re sweet. They’re funny. They’re understandable and almost always have a lesson. But the nice thing is the lesson isn’t browbeating the reader. It puts it in a way that kids will get and kids will want to ape. I get excited every time I see there’s a new one so Ben Clayton, please keep them coming. 

 To be honest I like Seth Meyers bio on the cover better than I like the book. This book is fine. It’s about a bear that doesn’t want to admit they are scared while their rabbit friend is adventurous. Bear eventually overcomes their fright when a friend needs help. I wish the story might have gotten into everything that bear did to go on an adventure while not going on an adventure was an adventure. But getting on a bus and a train and a helicopter was a type of an adventure. So I think the book missed the mark pointing that out. This book is also overly long. And it does not sound like Seth Meyers. Parts of it that I’m not scared you’re scared sounds exactly like him. But the rest of the story does not have the way with words we see him using his show. The book is nice and kids are going to like it, but I think it’s a one shot and Seth should stick to late night. 

 This book had a nice cadence; it’s a nice idea and a great story. The kids are trying to get the parents to eat more fruits and vegetables. This goes exactly as one would expect, but it’s nice for the kids to be begging the parents to eat something new. The illustrations are fun and go with the book. This book is written by the author of Go the F*** to sleep and Camila Alvarez, who is the wife of Matthew McConaughey. I’m assuming that her wife status is in her bio because people might not know who she is otherwise. But this isn’t bad for a celebrity author book. I could see this being loved at storytime and for years to come. 

 This book was fun. It rhymes well, but the cadence is all over the place. It wants to be in a pattern, but it’s not very good at keeping that pattern. However, the kids are going to love the story and will laugh at mom and dad or the storyteller as they trip over the lines. The illustrations are bright and fun, and a perfect match to the story. My one complaint is the letter at the beginning of the book. That should be moved to the end. A letter in beginning of the book set up expectations of what is to come. I think letters work better at the end, so one see what the author was expecting the reader to find, instead of telling the reader it’s going to be there. When you tell the reader it’s there ahead of time and they don’t find it or didn’t feel the message came across, it becomes a letdown of the story.  Overall, I like this book and it’s not bad for a celebrity author, but I think they need a little more practice.
 

 This dinosaur version of Rapunzel is very fun. In this case, Rapunzel is locked in the tower, so she sings. She makes a friend who climbs up the tower to come and play music with her. But the evil witch does not like this and cuts off Pterapunzel‘s hair. And that’s what it takes for Rapunzel to learn that she can fly and save herself. I love a modern fairytale where the princess saves herself and doesn’t need to rely on the prince. This book is fun, the illustrations match, and there are kids who are going to want to read it repetitively. 

 This is one of the few Jayme Lee Curtis books that does not rhyme. But that makes it no less special. This book starts with a child asking their parent to tell them about the night they were born. And this book goes through the child being born and picked up and how special it was because the child is adopted. This helps normalize adoption. It’s not a scary thing, it’s what it is, and it’s its own special view of how you came into the world. There are fabulous illustrations, and this is a forever classic by Jayme Lee Curtis. 

 First thing, as a Gen X are I feel the submarine should be yellow. However, this was a fun book. It sounds like Paul McCartney. A reader can picture him standing up there telling this story to his grandchildren. And that’s what makes this picture book successful. The illustrations definitely help it along as they match perfectly to the tone and the ideas put in a person‘s head by the story. This is a sequel as there is one other Grand dude book and I think everyone should check out the pair.