Here We Come!
by Janna Matthies; illus. by Christine Davenier
Preschool    Beach Lane/Simon    40 pp.    g
3/22    978-1-5344-1787-8    $17.99
e-book ed.  978-1-5344-1788-5    $10.99

Here is a book that begs to be read aloud at storytime—read aloud, and shouted, and paraded. The rhyming cumulative text begins with a child heading outside at night with a companion teddy bear and a tin whistle: “Here we come with a rum-pum-pum. / Wanna come?” The invitation is addressed to a dog inside a doghouse at the side of the road, who then emerges on two legs playing a guitar: “Here we come with a rum-pum-pum / and a pick and a strum.” The pattern continues with Little Lu in her pajamas (who joins them with a “swish-swish bum”), a violin-playing bear (“fiddle-dee, fiddle-dum”), a mouse on a kazoo (“­zum-zum”), and more until there is a veritable parade of revelers…and until the newest sound is—uh-oh!—a drip on a drum. Just in time, they all take shelter under an enormous tree (though don’t try this at home) as lightning strikes and the storm breaks. “Boom-boom-RUM-PUM!” From here the text reverses itself, dropping off participants as it unrolls, until finally it’s just the child and teddy bear, “right back where / we started from.” Davenier’s watercolors in their nighttime hues capture all the excitement and movement of the impromptu music fest. Each double-page spread subtly introduces the next participant, much fun for observant viewers. A delight from start to finish—perfectly paced, joyful, with just the right amount of tension and drama for the young audience, and wonderfully inclusive with its welcoming refrain: “Wanna come?”

From the March/April 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.