I don’t normally review children’s books but I was in need of an “emergency” story as my grandchildren had come on holiday with not one book amongst their luggage! So I had a look on NetGalley and came across this charming little tale, which fit the bill nicely. It’s cute and colourful with sweet characters – a monkey, a puppy, a rabbit and a horse – good friends who go on a quest together to find the magic Caringstone, a gem capable of making the saddest child smile. Overcoming obstacles on the way, as in all good quest stories, they are finally successful due to their teamwork and resilience. My only quibble is that the vocabulary seemed a bit misjudged at times, considering the target audience, which in my view is probably about 2-4. Optimism and technician, for example, are possibly not part of their daily vocabulary. Learning new words is great, but not at the expense of the narrative. That said, my grandchildren enjoyed the book, and after all, that is what matters.

Cute art with a positive message about working together. I think kids will really enjoy this book.

4 stars

This book seeks to brighten your day. It is a cute story full of caring as characters search for the Caringstone. Four friends set out on an adventure to find the Caringstone and we go along with them. This is a sweet story. We meet The Sunny Day Squad. They have heard about a magical gem known as the Caringstone. This gem is said to help sad children smile even if they are the saddest. heroes. This is a sweet read-aloud story for schools and libraries as well as homes. It is a delightful story with a kind message.

"Hey, friends, we're going on a quest!" This cute picture book introduces the friends, sets up their quest, and leaves them satisfied and reflecting on their success in their beds at the end of the day.
This perfect little bedtime book can encourage kids to feel that they have accomplished their goals and are ready to sleep.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

A fun book but the story itself needs work. Some words are hard for the target audience to understand and the illustrations don't match the story too well; they seem generically drawn.

When it comes to writing, Michael Panzner definitely presents some uniform features. In his third book, The Sunny Day Squad: The Quest for the Caringstone, Panzner, once again, introduces us to a set of friends that are on a unique mission to save something or other. Josie, Johnnie and Rosie and the Ocean Rescue! Gave us a young girl and her unicorn companions who inspired the locals to help clean up a beach that was heavily polluted with rubbish. The Taekwonderoos: Rescue at Rattling Ridge saw three kangaroos use their martial arts skills and quick thinking to save a joey stranded on a cliffside. The Sunny Day Squad: The Quest for the Caringstone, is equally as action-packed and sees four friends hunt for a caringstone in order to use it to locate all the sad children and make them smile once more.

Bringing together four friends that includes a monkey skilled at navigating tricky paths, a puppy that likes to speak in rhymes, a song-creating rabbit, and a tinkering horse, Panzner creates a dream team for the task at hand. The story sees them charm a llama to step aside and beavers to help create a shortcut. All the while, the book stays true to the characters. For example, Daisy the rabbit sings and sways to music, whilst Poppy the dog only speaks in rhyme. Despite this being a short story, it still gives the characters an intense sense of individuality.

Although the title clearly states that this is a search for a magical stone and makes no reference to it being used, I would have liked to have witnessed more about what the stone could do. Consequently, I felt the ending was a little abrupt. I also have reservation about the target group the book is marketed at. Amazon pitches the book at children aged between three and seven. Personal experience has shown me that children tend to gravitate towards books that include protagonists that are the same age, or slightly older than themselves. Owing to the color palette, the overall brightness of the book throughout, and the characters looking like they might be around five years of age, I am inclined to recommend the book for children between the ages of one and five who enjoy having stories read to them and are engaged by simple pictures.

The story is fun and easy to follow. It also includes underlying themes relating to friendship, teamwork, and good manners making this a wonderful book to help set an example of good moral standing to the youngest members of society. Nursery children will likely enjoy finding this book in their reading corner, whilst parents should feel great about having this on their child’s home bookshelves. Suitable for reading during the day or at bedtime, this book represents value for money because the story is likely to be enjoyed again, and again.

First off the squad go on a quest to find the caring stone. This I understood but getting to that the kids were confused as they said it was jumping all over the place. I had to keep explaining words for my daughter who is 4 and quite advanced with her speech and is even learning to read already found it hard to understand. I spent more time explaining that I just read it out first and said it in my own words. They got the idea of friendship and working together but it was hard for them to keep interested.

In a Nutshell: An indie picture book aimed at early readers. Great in intent, but needs a lot of work in the execution.

Story Synopsis:
Ollie the monkey, Poppy the puppy, Daisy the rabbit, and Ted the horse form the Sunny Day Squad. Each has a special talent that they use to bring joy to the world.
One day, an explorer named Captain Bravebutter approaches them with an ancient map that reveals the location of the Caringstone, a gem that can make even the saddest child smile. He asks the Squad to help him find the stone. Thus begins the adventure, which ends exactly how a children’s book should end – with happy smiles all around.


I do like the intent of the story. The four squad members are distinct in their strengths, but they work well as a team and their friendship also helps them coordinate their tasks better. The book stresses on the importance of teamwork and on using your skills to help others. The animal characters will appeal better to children. The basic story is sweet, but there’s nothing to set it apart from the hordes of other books in this category that deliver the same message.

The story is written in text blocks, with 1-4 blocks per page. On the pro side, there are several clever instances of alliteration in the text. The prose-based approach helps keep the focus on the plot. However, the textual content needs a bit more fine-tuning. Considering that the book is aimed at readers aged 3-7, the density of the text is quite high, though it is spaced out well on the page. In some cases, there should have been para breaks as the block shifted narratives without a clear indicator of who was speaking. Some punctuation marks are missing.

Moreover, there are some difficult words in the content (terrain, loon, optimism,…), which kids of the target age group might not know or understand. There’s even one mention of ‘crazy’, which I don’t prefer seeing in an early readers’ book.

There are many continuity gaps in the story. For instance, the children in the park anticipate an adventure even before the Captain has arrived on the scene. Bravebutter had asked the squad to accompany him on his quest as he can’t find the stone alone. However, he then goes missing from the quest, and suddenly pop back in after the stone is retrieved. As the title indicates, the focus of the book is merely on the quest for the Caringstone. Its use isn’t shown in the book, nor do we know who the magical figure is who reveals the location details to the explorer in his dream. A few more lines would have helped explain the jumps in the story and offer a better reading experience.

The illustrations could have saved the book for me to a certain extent, but they too were a mixed bag. The sketches are decent, though not exactly in a style I enjoy. I loved the beavers in their hard hats. The smiling sunflowers were also cute, though I couldn’t figure out why only the sunflowers had faces and the rest of the plants and trees didn’t. Some sketches don’t match the text, and some left me with queries. It’s not like I expect scientific accuracy when animals are drawn in picture books, but some basic details ought to be correct. So I can ignore a horse being shown as kneeling over a do-it-yourself project, and am even okay with a horse wearing trousers while his friend the monkey doesn’t. But I can’t accept a horse living and sleeping in a treehouse! Pete the “parrot” is actually drawn as a smaller version of a scarlet macaw. Macaws are parrots, but would children understand that the ”red parrot” in the story isn’t a typical parrot?

All in all, this is a book with its heart in the right place, but mere heart doesn’t make it a must-read. As someone who has read plenty of books in this genre, I didn’t really find any USP in this story, and in today’s competitive picture book market, a USP is a must.

This book might work better for you if you are not too fussy about the above mentioned issues. As I said, the target age is 3-7 years, but it would certainly have to be read with the help of an adult.

2 stars.


My thanks to BooksGoSocial, author Michael Panzner, and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Sunny Day Squad”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.

I read this with my 6 years and he absolutely loved it. He really liked how they all worked together to solve problems and had an amazing adventure. His words not mine. I found it a very cute, beautifully illustrated book perfect for children just starting school and learning about working together.

This is a cute children's book, The Sunny Day Squad, who are Ollie the monkey, Poppy the puppy, Daisy the rabbit, with Ted the horse.
In this adventure, they are on a journey from Gaggle Grove to find the fabled Caringstone, a magical gem that can make the saddest child smile. This is a wonderful story which my daughter and I loved, and we all really liked the gorgeous illustrations and the cute characters.
My 2 nephews loved this, especially liked the magical gem.
For me I liked that the story held a positive message for children.
I would Highly recommended!

Many thanks to the author, publisher an auto arc NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for feedback.

The Sunny Day Squad: The Quest for the Caringstone
by Michael Panzner
The story has great bright pictures, and a story about finding and using your own strength to help others. The book shows the nature of making connections with others. Finding solutions, and conquering struggles. The book shows the need to have friendships to make everyone helping.

This was a bit of a boring read. It circled around four animal friends, each with their own unique abilities, that set out to find the caring stone.

The abilities weren’t all that fascinating and worked far too easily when certain difficult situations popped up during their adventure. The caring stone wasn’t really explained anywhere except for the name and seemed to be nothing special given the lack of information provided surrounding it.

Thank you so much to Twin Unicorn Press and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

The sunny day squad have a new quest to find the caringstone, so together with their teamwork they head out to find it, using the skills of each one of them to get to their destination.

Really cute story on friendship, with a fun adventure to go on together to find the caringstone. The characters were all so happy and bright and adorable, I loved meeting them and learning the abilities each one acquired.

I really liked how they used their own skills were strongest at when it was really needed, I liked how they were working together through the whole journey. I also liked that though they had to bother some other animals for help on the way it was done with kindness and respect.

I enjoyed following the sunny day squad along and I know children would really enjoy this story, it’s got great lessons within it and it’s very adorable, the characters are all really cutesy and each unique to who they are. The book is filled with really cute and vibrant bright illustrations that will catch your eye instantly. A really sweet and fun read.

The Sunny Day Squad: The quest for the caringstone is such a cute little book! It's a story about four friends who set out to find caringstone, which is a stone that can make even the saddest child smile. Four friends have unique abilites and help each other overcome obstacles for a noble goal.

Cutesy little book in which four adventurous friends, each with different talents, are given a treasure map to find the Caringstone! Together they overcame obstacles and were declared heroes because it could only be done with them working together as a team.
This little story was delightfully illustrated by Polly Mooney.
Well suited for reading WITH someone of any age, great for gifting to anyone, but especially to a school or your public library!
I requested and received a temporary electronic copy on PDF from BooksGoSocial via NetGalley. Thank you!

This is a cute children's book about The Sunny Day Squad, who are Ollie the monkey, Poppy the puppy, Daisy the rabbit, and Ted the horse. In this adventure, they are on a journey from Gaggle Grove to find the fabled Caringstone, a magical gem that can make the saddest child smile. This is a wonderful story which my daughter and I loved, and we really liked the gorgeous illustrations and the cute characters. My daughter especially liked the magical gem. I liked that the story held a positive message for children. Highly recommended!

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book. All opinions are my own. Firstly, the positive - I loved the message in the book and the friendship the characters have. Unfortunately there are a few negatives for me. I didn't love some of the names (Gaggle Grove and Captain Bravebutter sound too silly) and I really didn't like the animations. It reminded me of a church brochure and I feel like the pictures could be so much better to convey the great message of the book. 3/5 strictly for the silly names and animation.

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This was a nice book about a squad of friends going on a quest. Each friend has their own unique skill that adds to the quest. Helps teach teamwork and playing to our strengths. I did feel it was a tad long for a picture book, but it held my 4-year gold's attention.

The drawings in this book are AMAZING!!! They are so lively and adorable. However, my main concern would be if this book is advanced for some young readers. First of all, the pages have quite a few sentences, which could make it difficult for children to pay attention. Also, words like “optimism” “loon” and “technician” are used. Overall, a whimsical book, but for advanced child readers.