Poppa Needs Shorts

Leigh Richmond’s Poppa Needs Shorts is a picture book that takes a small premise and runs with it for the early reader audience. The grandkids visit Poppa and decide his wardrobe situation needs an intervention. Most of the book is the loving back and forth between the kids and the grandfather as they shop for, and try on, various unsuitable shorts.

The humor is gentle. The illustrations carry most of the visual storytelling, and the text is simple enough for early readers to handle on their own. The relationship between grandfather and grandchildren is the emotional core, and Richmond plays it warmly without overdoing it.

For families with grandparents-grandkids dynamics they want to celebrate, this works as a bedtime read or as a gift book. Suitable for ages roughly four to seven, depending on whether the child is reading along or being read to.

Not the most ambitious picture book on the shelf. Comfortably in the middle of its category.