Kirkus
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In the new Little Bill series for beginning readers, Little Bill figures that his father has a prized collection of jazz LPs, his brother has a stack of classic baseball cards, and his mother owns a silver serving platter--so what does he have that's special? Enter his great-grandmother Alice, who hears his complaint, asks for a story, and laughs at the silly episode he concocts. Bill realizes that he has something special after all- -an ability to tell stories. Emerging readers will skip past Professor Alvin Poussaint's opening letter to parents but won't be able to dodge the bluntly delivered lesson in this three- chapter esteem-builder. Honeywood's brightly colored domestic scenes, painted in a flat, folksy style, add plenty of visual energy, and the pleasure each member of Little Bill's family takes in his or her special thing lightens the book's obvious didactic intent. (Fiction. 6-8)

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Fiction: Y Cosby presents Little Bill with difficult situations (discovering his own talents, coping with a bully, and wanting a video game his parents won't buy him), then has adult characters suggest the solutions in these disappointingly didactic volumes. Although Honeywood's stylized, color-saturated paintings are appealing, they can't compensate for the texts' heavy-handed treatments. Horn Rating: Marginal, seriously flawed, but with some redeeming quality. Reviewed by: jch (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.