Here We Come!

by Janna Matthies (Author) Christine Davenier (Illustrator)

Here We Come!
Reading Level: K − 1st Grade

Join a cast of friends, human and animal alike, as they embark on a musical read-aloud adventure in this upbeat, joyful picture book.

A boy sets off with his flute and his stuffed bear and a rum-pum-pum. As they make their way through the town and the woods, they ask, "Wanna come?" Soon, kids and creatures join in the fun one by one, playing instruments, singing, and dancing to the catchy tune. But will a storm bring their fun-filled musical parade to an end?

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Starred Review
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?"

Publishers Weekly

Loosely rendered spreads washed in lush nighttime blues give elegance to this fanciful excursion that employs nonsense sounds, a readaloud romp through a nighttime world ordered by rhythm and rhyme. The full moon shines into a bedroom where a teddy bear and light-skinned child look at each other in happy anticipation. A page turn later, they venture out for a nighttime parade: "Here we come with a rum-pum-pum.// Wanna come?" A dog with a guitar, a bear with a fiddle, a brown-skinned child with bubble gum, and more join the procession one by one, Matthies's rhyming lines stacking up, "The House That Jack Built"-style, until stormy weather ("a drip on a drum") interrupts their fun. The outing may be over, but the scenes of the parade breaking up are, in Davenier's hands, just as charming as the scenes in which it grows. Ages up to 8. (Mar.)

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.
Janna Matthies
Janna Matthies is a picture book author and early elementary music teacher in Indianapolis. Her books include Here We Come!; God's Always Loving You; Two Is Enough, which made the 2016 Bank Street list and New York Times Book Review; The Goodbye Cancer Garden; Peter, the Knight with Asthma; and Monster Trucks. Janna is a longtime volunteer with the Indiana SCBWI and provides editorial services to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for picture books supporting their Teddy Bear Concert Series. When she's not writing or making music, Janna can be found digging in the garden, swimming laps, walking Juneau the howling Husky, or keeping up with her husband and three mostly-grown kids.

Ashley Wolff lives in Vermont and is the author and illustrator of more than sixty books for children, including the modern classic Miss Bindergarten series by Joseph Slate, and her own celebrated Only the Cat Saw; Where, Oh Where, Is Baby Bear?; Baby Bear Counts One; and Baby Bear Sees Blue. Visit her at AshleyWolff.com.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781534417878
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Beach Lane Books
Publication date
March 15, 2022
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV051000 - Juvenile Fiction | Imagination & Play
JUV057000 - Juvenile Fiction | Stories in Verse (see also Poetry)
JUV031040 - Juvenile Fiction | Performing Arts | Music
Library of Congress categories
Picture books
Stories in rhyme
Music
Parades

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