Phyllis Kennemer, Ph.D. (Children's Literature)
Sunny Meerkat lives in the hot Kalahari Desert with his large family. They do everything together. One day, Sunny decides he has endured enough heat and enough togetherness. He packs his suitcase and takes off to find the PERFECT place to live. He spends his first night with Uncle Bob and his family who made him feel very welcome, but they live in constant fear of nearby predators. The next day Sunny visits some cousins, but living in a termite mound is just too itchy, so he moves on. Other stops along the way include a farm, a rain forest, a dark hole, and a marsh. As the week nears its end, Sunny is getting very discouraged. Perhaps no place is right for him. Then he comes upon a place that is very hot and the residents are very close. He has traveled in a wide circle to arrive back where he began. He is home and it is perfect. Sunny and his many mongoose relatives appear amiable and likable as they interact with each other in the softly colored illustrations. Picture post cards fold out from some of the pages providing interesting tidbits about Sunny’s travels. The end pages of the book feature illustrations as snapshots of family members and activities. This is a nice reminder of the values of home and family. 2007, Viking/Penguin, $15.99. Ages 5 to 8.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2007 (Vol. 75, No. 17))
A restless meerkat's wanderjahr lasts just six days, but that's long enough to visit as many members of his far-flung clan. Chafing at his large family's "Stay safe, stay together" lifestyle, Sunny packs a suitcase and goes off to visit a string of relatives, from Liberian mongoose cousins Mildred and Frank to Great Aunt Flo the marsh mongoose—oblivious to the predatory hyena struggling along behind. Unhappily, as he reports back on a set of lift-the-flap picture postcards, none of the places he visits are as warm or comfortable as his familiar old burrow, so in the end it's back to the Kalahari. There he gets a big welcome party with a banner, hugs, a platter of yummy scorpions . . . and the frustrated hyena gets a jeering send-off. Gravett depicts the meerkats, the mongooses and their varied habitats in deftly brushed watercolors, adding lighthearted riffs (the postcard from Aunt Flo's swamp is an ad for the "Dive-In Self-Service Restaurant") and decorating the endpapers with faux photos and newspaper clippings. Along with humor and suspense, she folds snippets of natural history into the tale—and it's worth noting that meerkats outdo even kittens for cuteness and personality. 2007, Simon & Schuster, 32p, $17.99. Category: Picture book. Ages 6 to 8. © 2007 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Paulette Braucher-Watton (Kutztown Book Review, Spring 2008)
Sunny Meerkat lives in the Kalahari Desert, where it is hot and dry. His large family is very close, so close that Sunny thinks it is time for him to find a better place to live. He visits some of his relatives, but finds that he doesn’t like where they live, how they live, and what they eat. He hates to admit it, but there is no place like home. All of his travels are documented through postcards that are attached to the page. The postcards really show how he is feeling about the places he visits and each card shows the reader that Sunny really wants to go home! This was a favorite of mine. It was funny and the illustrations really brought out Sunny’s feelings about where he was at that particular moment. Category: Picture Book. 2007, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $17.99. Ages 5 to 9.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2008)
Needing a break from his annoying siblings, meerkat Sunny leaves his Kalahari Desert home to visit extended family in different locales. He sends home postcards, cleverly inset as lift-the-flaps, through which Gravett neatly incorporates facts about meerkats, mongooses, and their habitats. Sunny eventually realizes there's no place like home and returns a wiser mammal with a new appreciation for family. Category: Picture Books. 2007, Simon, 32pp, 17.99. Ages 4 to 9. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.