B-125

Marilyn Sadler & Tim Bowers

The third P.J. Funnybunny book since his 2022 revival focuses on the relationship between P.J. and his younger sister Hunny Bunny. When Hunny becomes interested in baseball, P.J. teaches her the basics and helps her join the Timber Tornadoes T-Ball team. At its heart the book is about being a good sibling, but it doubles as a primer on the game of baseball. 

Best Bunny Brother Ever almost seems to be in conversation with a couple of previous Beginner Books, 1966's Don and Donna Go To Bat and the 1997 book that introduced P.J.'s little sister, Honey Bunny Funnybunny. The former, by Al Perkins and B. Tobey, also features a brother teaching his sister to play baseball. The latter ruffled some feathers with its depictions of P.J. mercilessly antagonizing his sister.

Best Bunny Brother Ever offers alternative outcomes for both. In Don and Donna... Donna learns the game quickly and finds success as a sub on her brother's team, but isn't allowed to pursue playing. And we get to see a much more loving, patient part of P.J. than was depicted in Honey Bunny Funnybunny.

Overall his is another solid P.J. book. Marilyn Sadler's story is told with straightforward prose, and Tim Bowers's illustrations are nearly perfect (do you know how hard it is to draw a baseball game well?).

B-127; SS-3

Avani Dwivedi

The third Seuss Studios book - a new subseries in which up-and-coming author/illustrators use the Seuss archives as inspiration for original stories - is another first. Avani Dwivedi is the first Beginner Book creator to have Indian heritage; she was born in Navi Mumbai. Even better, she makes her cultural background an integral part of her story.

Momo Sees The Sea concerns a young boy who loses his ball in the sea, and dives in to retrieve it. This leads him on a fantastical game of hide-and-seek with all manner of colorful sea creatures. As he finds each one, he declares "DHAPPA!", which means "I found you!". 

Dwivedi has illustrated a handful of books for other authors - notably, all also Indian - and released My Bollywood Dream in 2023. Her artwork in Momo Sees the Sea is cute, bright, immersive and well-composed.  Her prose is appropriately simple without being simplistic. I especially love some of her storytelling choices, including a two-page spread that shows Momo's ball going up (accompanied by the word "up") and then down (accompanied by the word "down"). There are also a couple of places where the reader is invited into the story by taking the point of view of the creature Momo is seeking.

Dwivedi's Suess inspiration was a finished illustration of a young boy in an underwater seascape. It's not known what this illustration was for, but my guess is that it was an exploratory piece for an unrealized project called The Sea Encyclopedia. Momo Sees the Sea also shares a kinship with the 1966 Beginner Book You Will Live Under The Sea, as the only other title in the series that takes place mostly underwater.

I continue to be impressed by the overall quality of the Seuss Studios offerings, and I sincerely hope they are finding their audience!

B-128; SS-4

Jerrard K. Polk

I try to approach each Beginner Book with an open mind. As an adult evaluating books created for children, I'm well aware just because something doesn't appeal to me doesn't mean it won't captivate a child. I'm also mindful of the fact that each book is the work of actual people who I assume put their best effort into it. So I always try to find the positive.

So let's start with the good things about Jerrard K. Polk's A Trip with BLIP. BLIP, a yellow contraption reminiscent of Speed Buggy, has some pretty cool transformations. I also like the story behind the story, which Polk shares in the back matter. Polk's mother was a librarian and he grew up with a deep love of books that he hopes to pass on to his readers. Finally, I'm pleased at Random House's continued commitment to spotlighting authors and characters of color.

All that said, the A Trip with BLIP is baffling. The rhyming story borrows its plot outline from The Cat in the Hat (a bored brother and sister find fun on a rainy day with the help of a fantastical creature) but really the book owes more to the Magic School Bus. Like that series, A Trip with BLIP uses a fantasy device to illuminate the wonders of the world. But in doing so Polk undermines the point he's trying to make.

In the beginning of the book, the sister character doesn't like reading and is dismissive of fairy and animal tales. She just wants to go outside and play. She only brightens when BLIP - powered by nonfiction books from the library - takes her and her brother to various real-world locations such as the ocean, space, and the time of the dinosaurs. 

Polk writes that he wanted to create a book to celebrate libraries and librarians, and if one squints one can see a message about finding the right type of books for you (in the sister's case, it's nonfiction). But because the girl's change-of-heart is achieved by experiencing things in a sensory way, A Trip with BLIP could just as well be promoting travel or virtual reality or films.

This is Polk's first book as an author, and only his third as an illustrator, and I fear that inexperience got the best of him here.