Picture Book - Cyril and Pat by Emily Gravett

Illustrated by the author

2018, Great Britain Simon & Schuster

HC $17.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  

My rating:  5
Endpapers: solid bright yellow

1^st line/s:  "Lake Park only had one squirrel,
all alone and sad (poor Cyril).
Until the morning he met Pat,
his new best friend, a big gray ..."

My comments:Great story and great illustrations!!  Written mostly in sets of couplets and full of humor with lots to look at in each illustration.  And what a great message - you can be friends with ANYONE!!!

Goodreads:  Cyril is the only squirrel in Lake Park, and he's very lonely. Until one day he meets Pat – Pat the big, grey . . . other squirrel. Cyril and Pat have lots of adventures and fun together and Cyril is so pleased he's made a friend. But everyone is adamant that Cyril and Pat simply cannot be friends, and they soon reveal why: Pat, as the reader has known all along, is actually a RAT!
          But Cyril's life turns out to be a lot duller and quite a bit scarier without Pat by his side, and in the end the two friends learn that some things are more important than being the same, or listening to others.          Cyril and Pat is a richly colourful, rhyming romp through the park from the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal-winning Emily Gravett. 

The Pied Piper's Magic - Steven Kellogg

2009
Rating: 5
For: Kids
$16.99
Front endpapers: Elf walking through a lovely forest
Back endpapers: Pied Piper Fountan full of happy people swimming

Take one happy fairy tale full of magic and fun and imagination, add colorful full-page illustrations by Steven Kellogg, and every kid AND adult will be smiling. Sure, it's a corny, predictable story, but it's clever and charming, too.

A take on the pied piper, but many changes and additions make it practically a new story. Peterkin the elf has decided to look for work and spread a little happiness, so he sets off until he finds a run-down house in the woods. Elbavol, the witch, has always been unhappy, but Peterkin does such a topnotch cleaning jog that she gives him a pipe (horn) that has magical power that she's never been able to find. He discovers that it plays words, and if he flips over backwards, the words reverse.

Okay, one wicked king and many rats/star later, Elbavol/Lovable and the king marry and everyonee is happy, happy, happy!

Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed - Mo Willems

For: Kids
Published 2009
Rating: 2
$16.99
Endpapers: Sign saying: No Shirt/No shoes/Service (on front) Why not? (on back)

I'm not exactly sure what my reaction is to this book. Okay, Mole rats are suppoed to be naked and Wilbur likes to be dressed. He's very cute trying to decide which outfit to ear. True, he marches to his own drummer. This is always good. When asked WHY he likes to be dressed he ask, "Why not?"

Why not, indeed. Grand-pah calls a meeting and arrives dressed, so some mole rats decide to try it too, and some don't.

Okay....another book to share with my Animal Farm-ers?

Cutish illustrations, but this seems like a lame book. It's probably just me - I was never gah-gah over Knuffle Bunny, either.

Next time I read it I may love it, but today I don't.