The Someone New

by Jill Twiss, EG Keller (Illustrator)

Overview

From Jill Twiss and EG Keller, the author and illustrator team behind the #1 New York Times bestselling picture book Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, comes The Someone New, a fresh and timely story about how it feels when someone new comes knocking at your door.

"A beautiful and timely message wrapped in a sweet story about new friendship." —Jesse Tyler Ferguson, actor

"A beguiling, entertaining, gorgeously illustrated story of adorable animals reminding us humans of our humanity." —Jon Cryer, actor

Jitterbug the chipmunk likes it when things stay the same. So when one day Pudding the snail comes into her woods, Jitterbug worries that everything will be different. What if Pudding spoils everything? What if there’s no more room for Jitterbug?

With the help of her friends, can Jitterbug welcome the newcomer and learn that kindness is stronger than fear?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062933744
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/04/2019
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	235,939
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jill Twiss is the author of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, a New York Times #1 bestseller. She is also a comedy writer who has won multiple Emmys, WGA Awards, and Peabody Awards for her work as a staff writer on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. In her not-so-spare time, Jill writes sentences for the Scripps National Spelling Bee on ESPN and is working on a musical about the women of the Seneca Falls Convention.

EG Keller is the illustrator of the New York Times #1 bestseller Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo and the picture book His Royal Dogness, Guy the Beagle: The Rebarkable True Story of Meghan Markle's Rescue Dog. As Gerald Kelley, he illustrated documentarian Ken Burns’s New York Times bestselling book Grover Cleveland, Again! and wrote and illustrated the picture book Please Please the Bees, which won the 2017 Frances and Wesley Bock Book Award for Children’s Literature and was read aloud for Storyline Online by Rashida Jones. Keller lives in Colorado with his husband.

Editorial Reviews

06/24/2019

Twiss and Keller, the team behind A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, return with a picture book that, while less political than its predecessor, alludes to timely events. Jitterbug the chipmunk isn’t fond of change, and when she wakes one morning in her cozy den, she senses that “Something was New.” She wanders her verdant meadow neighborhood, encountering friends along the way (Toast, a butterfly; Duffles and Nudge, both otters). Then, Jitterbug does encounter something new: Pudding, a snail who has been displaced by a storm and is searching for a place to land. Nervous that there won’t be enough acorns for everyone, Jitterbug turns Pudding away, only to learn that “kindness is stronger than fear.” Keller’s artwork is playful and expressive (Pudding wears a duffel backpack), and each animal has a distinctive personality. Though Twiss’s messaging is pretty on the nose—“I was wrong! Please please please come live with us! I was scared because you are New,” Jitterbug says—it’s no less important for child readers (and perhaps some adults) to embrace. Ages 4–8. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Keller’s artwork is playful and expressive, and each animal has a distinctive personality. Twiss’s messaging is important for child readers (and perhaps some adults) to embrace.” — Publishers Weekly

“A beautiful and timley message wrapped in a sweet story about new friendship. I’m going to have kids just so I can read them Jill Twiss’s heavenly books.” — Jesse Tyler Ferguson, actor  

“A beguiling, entertaining, gorgeously illustrated story of adorable animals reminding us humans for our humanity.”   — Jon Cryer

From the Publisher

A beautiful and timley message wrapped in a sweet story about new friendship. I’m going to have kids just so I can read them Jill Twiss’s heavenly books.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson

A beguiling, entertaining, gorgeously illustrated story of adorable animals reminding us humans for our humanity.”  

Jon Cryer

2019-05-26
The creators of A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (2018) press another topical hot button.

Replete with twee Capital Letters, the tale sends Jitterbug the chipmunk skittering from her cozy nest in search of the Something New that her sensitive tummy tells her has come to the forest. Along the way she meets friends who share important thoughts she tucks away as irrelevant but "good information." The Something turns out to be a Someone, namely slow-talking Pudding the snail, a refugee from the recently flooded garden over the hill. Prompted by fear of change, Jitterbug peremptorily orders Pudding to turn back. But when her less jittery animal neighbors gang up to point out that she's being irrational, Jitterbug acknowledges her mistake. Back comes Pudding (who hadn't gotten very far anyway) to make a new home and become a Very Good Friend. In splashy digital watercolors Keller adds at least some flavor to the precious narrative, placing animated forest creatures with mildly anthropomorphic postures and expressions into pleasant sylvan surroundings and strapping a backpack atop Pudding's brightly striped shell. Jitterbug may judge the thought that "even though New can be scary, kindness is stronger than fear" to be "very good information," but her change of heart at the shrink-wrapped climax comes with superficial ease.

The grown-ups who buy this will already, like their offspring, have bought the message. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews