In my position as a technical processing assistant at the DeWitt Community Library, I catalog a lot of new picture books. Unfortunately, I cannot review them all, but I do read them all and have assigned a 🙂 to my favorites. Finley Frog’s favorite is marked with a 8). Below are a few I’ve cataloged recently. (Whenever possible, summaries have been taken directly from the books.)

An unexpected adventure with his friends and a kite convinces Penguin Blue that he is not built for flying, and that he belongs on solid ice.

Too excited to hibernate through his first winter, a bear cub tries to find spring.

🙂 While his life seems perfectly good as it is, Cardell, a young coyote, learns to tolerate–and even like–the coyote that is courting his mother.

🙂 A mother and baby have fun spending the day together as they play, work in the garden, visit the park, and more.

🙂 Illustrations and easy-to-read, rhyming text reveal that whether one is feeling frightened, grumpy, or shy, three special words can make things better.

🙂 Monkey and Duck enter a rhyming contest but there is one problem–Duck cannot rhyme and all he says is “quack”.

It’s always been just the two of them–daydreaming, having adventures, playing their special game. Until the day someone else asks, “Can I play?”

The lamb Sydney befriends the shepherd girl Zhi, as well as other animals of the Chinese lunar calendar, and demonstrates the qualities of a kind heart.

Can friendship bloom between a dog and a chick?

Otto the Owl doesn’t fit in because he would rather recite poetry than hunt mice.

8) Rex, a tyrannosaurus, finds an egg and loves it enough to save it from a volcano that is about to erupt, protecting it as he runs, falls, splashes, tumbles, and more on the way to his nest.

🙂 Glamourpuss loves being the center of attention. So when an unwelcome guest (a dog, no less!) steals the spotlight with some tasteless bow-wowing and undignified tail-wagging, Glamourpuss worries that she is going to fall out of fashion.

Eight wild bears–Moon Bear, Sun Bear, Sloth Bear, Brown Bear, Spectacled Bear, American Black Bear, Giant Panda and Polar Bear–all shown in their wild habitats in spectacular watercolor paintings.