A New Genre (for me) of Children's Books - Children's Illustrated Fiction

A couple of weeks back, I posted on LinkedIn's Fiction Writer's Guild, of which I am a member (I swear I know that I don't write fiction - is a blogger even an author?), that I would be happy to read any author's ARC and post a review on this blog.  Well, one of the people who responded was JZ (not Jay Z) Bingham.  And she wanted me to read, of all things, 3 children's books that she wrote, part of her Salty Splashes Collection.  I said sure.  So, last week, I got in the mail 3 beautiful, already-published, children's books.  I have read them and am ready to pass judgment; I mean, review them.

The books are called:
Dreamy Drums, Trouble in Paradise
Isle of Mystery, Eyes of the King
Gansevort, The King and His Court

I liked these books a lot.  Let me list what I liked about them:

1.  They are adventure stories, but not too scary for younger kids
2.  They rhyme in a natural, not forced, way
3.  They are actually a series and should be read in order, and you all know that I love series
4.  The characters are all animals and, oftentimes, unlikely friends (e.g. a dog and a cat)
5.  They bring in new friends each book
6.  They are kids who will be kids, so real kids can relate to them
7.  The illustrations are hand-drawn, very colorful, and super neat

I think the best part of these books is that they actually read like fiction and would appeal to a wide range of ages.  There are whole pages that are just story.  In fact, about 25% of the pages are text with no illustrations.  Many of the other pages have text within an illustrated page.  And still others have illustrations and no text.

I have to admit that I had never heard of Children's Illustrated Fiction before these 3 landed on my doorstep.  But now that I have, I'm a big fan.  This is a very cool concept and done really well.  I will definitely be reading these books to my grandkids.  Count me among JZ's fans!