Get your kids reading this summer with one of these great new books:
— A popular mouse stars in a couple of vehicle-shaped board books. Choose from "Maisy's Train" and "Maisy's Fire Engine" (Candlewick Press, $5.99 each), both written and illustrated by Lucy Cousins. (Ages birth-3.)
— Author-illustrator Petr (cq) Horacek's 2006 wonderfully silly picture book, "Silly Suzy Goose," now is available in a board-book version (Candlewick Press, $7.99, ages 1-3).
— Little ones (and their parents!) can learn a bit of basic sign language with "Baby Signs" (Orchard Books/Scholastic, $19.99). This book, written by Kyle Olmon and illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers, also is a pop-up book — kids can pull tabs to see how to do simple signs like "more," ''eat" and "no." (Ages 1 up, with adult supervision.)
— Margaret Mahy's comic rhyming text combines perfectly with Polly Dunbar's watercolor illustrations in "Bubble Trouble" (Clarion, $16), which tells what happens when a young girl's bubble engulfs her baby brother and carries him away. (Ages 3-6.)
— Is it a duck? Or is it a rabbit? It's up to the reader to decide in "Duck! Rabbit!" (Chronicle, $16.95), a clever picture book written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld. (Ages 3-7.)
— She's a "whiskers wiper" and "crayon swiper." She's "Posy" (Atheneum, $16.99), the mischievous kitten protagonist in an enchanting picture book written by Linda Newbery and illustrated by Catherine Rayner. (Ages 2-4.)
— Every bird has produced an egg except Duck. In "The Odd Egg" (Simon & Schuster, $15.99), author-illustrator Emily Gravett shows what happens when Duck finds an unusual egg that hatches into an even more unusual creature. (Ages 3-6.)
— If you haven't discovered the work of British author-illustrator Shirley Hughes, her newest picture book, "Olly and Me: 1, 2, 3" (Candlewick Press, $16.99), is a great place to start. In this book, Hughes combines a gentle lesson on counting with her usual affectionate portraits of busy children. (Ages 3-7.)
— A popular canine-feline duo are off on another adventure for early readers in "Houndsley and Catina: Plink and Plunk" (Candlewick Press, $15.99), written by James Howe and illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay. (Ages 5-8.)
— Sisters, beware! A boy named Bradley Harris Pinkerton is cooking up trouble for you in "How To Drive Your Sister Crazy" (HarperCollins, $16.99), an "I Can Read! Book" written by Diane Z. Shore and illustrated by Laura Rankin. (Ages 5-7.)
— Daisy Dawson's special talent — talking to animals — comes in handy in her second, easy-chapter book adventure, "Daisy Dawson and the Secret Pond" (Candlewick Press, $14.99), written by Steve Voake and illustrated by Jessica Meserve. (Ages 6-8.)
— Scripps Howard News Service
