Dark and delightful—for readers who enjoy chills with their giggles.
A young boy takes a terrifying bus ride on his way to his grandmother’s house in Becker and Fearing’s gleefully baleful picture book.
“’Twas the thirteenth of November, a stormy night, / when the Thirteen bus hove into sight. / Something about it didn’t seem right… // but Michael McMichael boarded.” And off young Michael McMichael goes on his way to deliver a beloved pet to his grandmother. A busful of creepy passengers doesn’t faze the young boy of color, but when he suddenly finds himself alone, he begins to notice the bus’s jawlike doors, its tonguelike floor, and the driver’s sinister leer. Becker’s rollicking rhyme scheme not only captures the rapid, lurching motion of Michael McMichael’s journey, but as the unnerving quickly escalates to the life-threatening, it also steadily envelops readers in the rising tension. Fearing’s dark but dynamic illustrations keep pace with the building intensity and intertwine with the text as seamlessly as humor intertwines with horror in a narrative that sits somewhere between “The Raven” and Courage the Cowardly Dog animated cartoons. And rather than pull back and return readers to the dullness of safety, Michael McMichael’s creative and disconcerting solution to free himself from the bus will leave readers with a whole new set of frissons.
Dark and delightful—for readers who enjoy chills with their giggles. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8150-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Cookie-cutter predictability.
After all the daring escapes in the How To Catch… series, will the kids be able to catch Santa?
Oddly, previous installments saw the children trying (and failing) to catch an elf and a reindeer, but both are easily captured in this story. Santa, however, is slippery. Tempted but not fooled by poinsettias, a good book (attached to a slingshot armed with a teddy bear projectile), and, of course, milk and cookies, Santa foils every plan. The hero in a red suit has a job to do. Presents must be placed, and lists must be checked. He has no time for traps and foolery (except if you’re the elf, who falls for every one of them). Luckily, Santa helps the little rascal escape each time. Little is new here—the kids resort to similar snares found in previous works: netting, lures, and technological wonders such as the Santa Catcher 5000. Although the rhythm falters quite a bit (“How did we get out you ask? / It looked like we were done for. / Santa’s magic is very real, / and I cannot reveal more”), fans of the series may not mind. Santa and Christmas just might be enough to overcome the flaws. Santa and the elf are light-skinned, one of the children is brown-skinned, and the other presents as Asian. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Cookie-cutter predictability. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781728274270
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2023
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A forgettable effort that fails to capture any of the magical charm of Santa’s story. (Picture book. 3-6)
Wallace and Elkerton continue their series about catching elusive mythical creatures (How to Catch a Leprechaun, 2016, etc.) with this Christmas story about an elf who must avoid traps constructed by children before Santa’s annual visit.
The unnamed elf narrator is the sole helper traveling with Santa on his delivery rounds on Christmas Eve, with each house featuring a different type of trap for elves. The spunky elf avoids a mechanical “elf snatcher,” hidden in a plate of cookies, as well as simple traps made of tinsel, double-sided tape, and a cardboard box concealing a mean-looking cat. Another trap looks like a bomb hidden in a box of candy, and a complicated trap in a maze has an evil cowboy clown with a branding iron, leading to the elf’s cry, “Hey, you zapped my tushy!” The bomb trap and the branding iron seem to push the envelope of child-made inventions. The final trap is located in a family grocery store that’s booby-trapped with a “Dinner Cannon” shooting out food, including a final pizza that the elf and Santa share. The singsong, rhyming text has a forced cheeriness, full of golly-jolly-holly Christmas spirit and too many exclamation marks, as well as rhyming word pairs that miss the mark. (No, little elf-boy, “smarter” and “harder” do not rhyme.) Bold, busy illustrations in a cartoon style have a cheeky appeal with a focus on the freckle-faced white elf with auburn curls and a costume with a retro vibe. (Santa is also white.)
A forgettable effort that fails to capture any of the magical charm of Santa’s story. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4631-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
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