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 his use of this device causes Polk to undermine 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.

B-129

Edward Miller

Edward Miller's second Beginner Book (the first was 2022's vehicle-centered Busy Street) once again goes for the throat, this time taking on everyone favorite prehistoric creatures. Miller is not messing around when it comes to whether or not his topics will appeal to children. I fully expect his next Beginner Book to be about unicorns.

I risk understatement when I say there have been A LOT of children's books about dinosaurs. So much so that this isn't even the first Beginner Book to take them on, it's the fourth! So Miller's challenge, then, was to do something new with the topic. I'm sorry to say he doesn't get there.

The books primary mission statement seems to be  showcasing different species of dinosaurs. While the four-line rhyme of the text talks very generally about what they eat, their physical characteristics, or their habitats, the illustrations (the vast majority are two-page spreads) depict all sorts of appealingly colorful dinos each labeled with their name (and phonetic pronunciation). This is all well and good, and I applaud Miller for his ability to cartoonify so many different species. That's no easy feat. In this way, the book borders on nonfiction; it's Paleontology for Beginners.

Plenty of Beginner Books don't have a plot to speak of, so that's all good. At least until Miller half-heartedly introduces one on page 21. Here, suddenly, a T-Rex begins chasing the other dinosaurs, but they get away, and she runs home to her parents ("she is ALWAYS their baby - just like YOU!" - I can tell you most 5-6 year olds don't want to be reminded of that). After this vignette it's back to business for the end of the book.

Overall, another modern Beginner Book that could have been better with just a couple of different choices.