Picture Book

Cat Nap / Brian Lies

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment 
Cat Nap
By: Brian Lies
Genre: Children’s, Picture Book
Number of Pages: 48
Published: September 30, 2025 (1st Published January 1, 2025
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Dates Read: November 23, 2025
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

A mixed media children’s book about when a cat’s nap is disturbed by a mouse, a chase ensues through time, art, and history.

This is a wonderfully crafted book where this cat comes alive in nine pieces of art throughout history. 

Those who love art and art history would love reading this to their littles. But, I found I enjoyed it myself as an adult with no children. I especially like the behind the scenes in the back of the book about how all the pages were made.

Evelyn Witch Gets a Pet / Beth Ferry, Charles Santoso (Illustrator)

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Evelyn Witch Gets a Pet
By: Beth Ferry, Charles Santoso (Illustrator)
Genre: Children’s, Picture Book
Number of Pages: 32
Published: July 8, 2025
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Dates Read: October 20, 2025
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

Evelyn Witch has everything a witch needs, except a pet! She can only afford the mystery pet, which opens to be a plain white egg. Now, she must wait for it to hatch!

As a librarian, I loved that Evelyn went to the library to research things she didn’t know. I also loved her ambition to help get her egg to hatch. She was doing everything she could think of to finally meet her pet!

The overall moral of this story is patience of course – Evelyn does everything she can think of to speed up the hatching, but once she realizes she just needs to wait, the egg finally hatches!

This story has eye-catching illustrations, fun, rhyming lines, and a spunky, eager child who just wants to meet her pet.

The Tiny Chef: and da mishing weshipee blook / Rachel Larsen, Adam Reid, Ozi Akturk

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The Tiny Chef: and da mishing weshipee blook
By: Rachel Larsen, Adam Reid, Ozi Akturk
Genre: Children’s, Picture Book
Number of Pages: 40
Published: September 15, 2020
Publisher: Razorbill
Dates Read: October 20, 2025
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

From The Tiny Chef Show comes a storytime adventure about Tiny Chef and his hunt to find his missing recipe book.

I didn’t become a fan of Tiny Chef until recent months, so I am a bit late getting my hands on a copy of this book to read from the library. I could hear Tiny Chef through the pages, so it was a fun read for me (because sometimes you do need to read it aloud to understand what Chef’s saying).

One of the fun things I like about Tiny Chef is that he is so relatable and even though he’s tiny, he’s still got big emotions. We can all learn from Tiny Chef.

Overall, any lover of Tiny Chef will love this book and anyone who hasn’t met Tiny Chef, this is a good little place to start.

Spooky / Sally Anne Garland

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Spooky
By: Sally Anne Garland
Genre: Children's, Picture Book
Number of Pages: 40
Published: August 5, 2025
Publisher: Sunbird Books
Dates Read: October 20, 2025
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

When a family moves into a new house, they quickly realize they’re not alone. With patience and care maybe their new housemate will come out of the shadows.

What an adorable children’s book about not only moving into a new house and the adjustments that come with that, but also the adjustment that comes with a new furry member of the family.

This is adorable artwork, but also – the cat carrying around its little toy mouse in its mouth was the most adorable thing.

I know this is a children’s book, so maybe I am thinking too much into this for a children’s book, but I want to know what Spooky was doing before the family moved in, because it mentions the house had been empty for a while. It only really takes the family a day to figure out that there’s a cat in their house and to start leaving it food and water, but that still means they were all alone for a bit!

Overall, this is adorable and any cat lover will love this but this is also a good story about adjustment and patience for children.