Seymour's home is one readers will want to visit again, but they can be thankful for now that reading this app doesn't...
Christmas gifts opened too early come to life and make mayhem in this quirky, lecture-free lesson on the virtue of patience.
Bespectacled Seymour can't wait to get his presents—he’s hoping for a Pro Pigskin 5000 football, like the one he saw on TV. By Christmas Eve, he can't resist taking an early peek at the computer, skates and the football he's expecting. But when he opens the loot, making the gifts “hatch” too early, the presents start tearing the house apart. Can Seymour and his spunky pup get everything rewrapped? Told with a combination of touch-activated animation, inventive, pull-tab–like controls and lots of amusing background detail, it's that rare holiday tale that feels both completely wholesome and a bit anarchic. When things go crazy, the perspectives go wild, and the gifts don't just go bad; they turn into scary little mutants. The Pigskin becomes a toothy boar with menace on its mind, for instance. Of course, Seymour manages to tame the chaos in an ingenious way and learns that "sometimes waiting is the only way… / …to get what you want." The app could use a way to skip to specific pages, but its clever and spunky personality more than make up for that.
Seymour's home is one readers will want to visit again, but they can be thankful for now that reading this app doesn't require waiting until December 25th. (iPad storybook app. 3-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Crab Hill Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Sky-based pyrotechnics make for a fun if somewhat confusing telling.
In this collaboration between sci-fi novelist Sanderson and Amulet creator Kibuishi, an unreliable narrator informs readers that here be no dragons.
“A boy sat in a chair.” The book opens on a bespectacled, light-skinned child in old-fashioned attire. The narration continues, “That’s it. He just sat in a chair,” while on the opposite page, the boy’s chair has unexpectedly whisked him heavenward. The narrator attempts to convince readers that just sitting in a chair is boring. As the story continues, however, the boy is attacked by an array of sky ruffians operating vessels; fight scenes and impressive explosions ensue. A dragon makes an appearance as the narrator drones on about how dull the story is. Kibuishi’s detailed cartoon images depict an enticing steampunk-esque world. Adults reading this book to kids might want to read the text first without the pictures; on a second run they can show off the images, neatly illustrating the important interplay of text and visuals in sequential art. Unfortunately, for all that the illustrations maintain the action at a fair clip, near the end the plot grows muddled as the boy gets out of his chair but then tumbles to the ground: Was he falling and then trying to stop himself? Some adult intervention may be required to clarify what precisely is happening on the page.
Sky-based pyrotechnics make for a fun if somewhat confusing telling. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9781250843661
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
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