This is exactly what a great picture book should be: funny, surprising, and sneakily teaching kids about empathy without feeling like a lesson. Tabor's won a pile of medals for good reason—he knows how to craft a story that lands.

The premise is genius: everyone thinks Crow is just a jerk, but he's actually monitoring an incoming asteroid and waiting for mission control to give him orders. It's the kind of twist that makes kids want to immediately reread the book to catch all the clues they missed.

Kirkus gave it a starred review and called it 'storytelling at its most brilliant,' and they're not wrong. The illustrations are playful, the pacing is perfect, and there's even a secret code to decode. It's entertaining enough that parents won't mind the inevitable requests to read it seventeen times in a row.

Solid addition to any home library, especially if your kid is in that early reader sweet spot or loves books with a good surprise ending.