Woo Hoo! You’re Doing Great!
by Sandra Boynton; illus. by the author
Preschool    Little, Brown    40 pp.
4/23    9780316486798    $17.99

Self-help gets the Sandra ­Boynton ­treatment with energetic antics, ­deadpan humor, and ear-pleasing rhyme. “Have you been feeling kind of low? / A little lost? / A little slow?” A ­well-meaning, loud-squawking chicken acts as a personal pep squad to ­Boynton’s familiar ­menagerie. “THERE’S SURELY NOTHING MORE ­FANTASTIC THAN SOMEONE WHO’S ­ENTHUSIASTIC!” the shouty narrator insists, proceeding to cheer on a roller-skating pig, ballet-dancing hippos, and others. But some ­activities—taking a nap, for instance—are best accomplished without a cheering section (“You. Woke. Me. Up!”), and the tale takes a turn as the chicken suffers an identity crisis: “Oh no!!! I made a mistake!!! I’m no good at this!!!” A mouse friend provides reassurance about mistake-making and own-bucket-filling through rest, self-care, and positive self-talk. The words of wisdom are at an appropriately preschool-ish level but can be taken to heart by anyone. Lest the message come across as heavy-handed, the endpapers close (as they opened) with the chicken’s extremely loud and boisterous cries of “WOO HOO!”

From the March/April 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.