This is one of the very best of Rylant's Putter-Tabby dyad, as always affectionately depicted by the master of droll illustration. Mr. Putter decides to buy some fish to have at home. They remind him of his childhood. Tabby likes fish too. They "made her whiskers tingle and her tail twitch." And how: "Mr. Putter and Tabby drove their fish home. Tabby nearly twitched herself out of the car." Once they are home and the fish safely in their bowl, Tabby's whiskers chill and her tail quietens, but her paw swings into action. "Bat. Bat. Bat. Bat." It goes against the glass bowl. She can't control herself. By the time evening rolls around, Tabby is so frazzled it looks like she will have to enter a treatment program. So Mr. Putter drapes a pillowcase over the fishbowl. In the morning Tabby is found under the pillowcase and hard at batting the bowl. Mr. Putter is reduced to putting a metal pail over the bowl. A few days of that sad arrangement and they decide to give the fish to their neighbor Mrs. Teaberry. Like great farce, Rylant has chosen every word impeccably and Howard has drawn Tabby to a T, tingling whiskers, wayward paw, and all. Readers young and old will laugh themselves silly. (Easy reader. 4-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-202408-5
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
This vibrant, thoughtful book from Katz (Over the Moon, 1997) continues her tribute to her adopted daughter, Lena, born in Guatemala. Lena is “seven. I am the color of cinnamon. Mom says she could eat me up”; she learns during a painting lesson that to get the color brown, she will have to “mix red, yellow, black, and white paints.” They go for a walk to observe the many shades of brown: they see Sonia, who is the color of creamy peanut butter; Isabella, who is chocolate brown; Lucy, both peachy and tan; Jo-Jin, the color of honey; Kyle, “like leaves in fall”; Mr. Pellegrino, the color of pizza crust, golden brown. Lena realizes that every shade is beautiful, then mixes her paints accordingly for portraits of her friends—“The colors of us!” Bold illustrations celebrate diversity with a child’s open-hearted sensibility and a mother’s love. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5864-8
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
PLB 0-688-13166-2 King Midas And The Golden Touch ($16.00; PLB $15.63; Apr.; 32 pp.; 0-688-13165-4; PLB 0-688-13166-2): The familiar tale of King Midas gets the golden touch in the hands of Craft and Craft (Cupid and Psyche, 1996). The author takes her inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s retelling, capturing the essence of the tale with the use of pithy dialogue and colorful description. Enchanting in their own right, the illustrations summon the Middle Ages as a setting, and incorporate colors so lavish that when they are lost to the uniform gold spurred by King Midas’s touch, the point of the story is further burnished. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-13165-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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