A must for picky eaters.
A little girl who never eats green beans resorts to extreme measures when a mob of rogue beans kidnaps her parents in this twisted take on cleaning your plate.
Martha’s parents serve green beans for dinner every Tuesday and always tell her how good they are for her. But Martha knows green beans are really bad. “Very bad.” She’s vindicated when a “gang of mean green beans,” with “black beady eyes and long curly mustaches” and wearing “cowboy hats and sharp pointy boots,” swaggers into town, terrorizing anyone who’s ever advocated eating green beans. After the dastardly beans kidnap her parents, Martha’s initially elated to be on her own, but by morning, she misses them. When she finds the beans holding her parents hostage, Martha threatens to eat the beans if they won’t let her parents go. The beans don’t take Martha seriously, as she’s never eaten a green bean in her life. Will Martha hold her nose and eat the beans, or will she let the bad beans rule? Dramatically comic illustrations rely on bold colors as well as exaggerated gestures and facial expressions to heighten the absurd. With their silly black hats, boots, mustaches and eyes, the spindly green beans actually do look menacing enough to steal the show.
A must for picky eaters. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3766-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
As Captain Awesome would say, this kid is “MI-TEE!” (Fiction. 5-8)
The town of Sunnyview got a little bit safer when 8-year-old Eugene McGillicudy moved in.
Just like his comic-book mentor, Super Dude, Eugene, aka Captain Awesome, is on a one-man mission is to save the world from supervillains, like the nefarious “Queen Stinkypants from Planet Baby.” Just as Eugene suspected, plenty of new supervillains await him at Sunnyview Elementary. Are Meredith Mooney and the mind-reading Ms. Beasley secretly working together to try and force Eugene to reveal his secret identity? Will Principal Brick Foot succeed in throwing Captain Awesome into the “Dungeon of Detention?” Fortunately, Eugene isn’t forced to go it alone. Charlie Thomas Jones, fellow comic-book lover and Super Dude fan, stands ready and willing to help. When the class hamster goes missing, Captain Awesome must don his cape and, with the help of his new best friend, ride to the rescue. Kirby’s funny and engaging third-person narration and O’Connor’s hilarious illustrations make the book easily accessible and enormously appealing, particularly to readers who have recently graduated to chapter books. But it is the quirky, mischievous Eugene that really makes this book special. His energy and humor are contagious, and his dogged commitment to his superhero alter ego is enough to make anyone a believer.
As Captain Awesome would say, this kid is “MI-TEE!” (Fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4090-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A gentle adventure that sets the stage for future quests.
A lonely prince gains a friend for a quest to find a missing jewel.
Prince Lucas of Wrenly has everything a boy could possibly want—except a friend. His father has forbidden him to play with the village children for reasons of propriety. Adventure-seeking Lucas acquires peasant clothes to masquerade as a commoner and make friends, but he is caught out. His mother, the queen, persuades the king to allow him one friend: Clara, the daughter of her personal dressmaker. When the queen’s prized emerald pendant goes missing, Lucas and Clara set off to find it. They follow the jewel as it changes hands, interviewing each temporary owner. Their adventure cleverly introduces the series’ world and peoples, taking the children to the fairy island of Primlox, the trolls’ home of Burth, the wizard island of Hobsgrove and finally Mermaid’s Cove. By befriending the mermaids, Lucas and Clara finally recover the jewel. In thanks, the king gives Clara a horse of her own so that she may ride with Lucas on their future adventures. The third-person narration is generally unobtrusive, allowing the characters to take center stage. The charming, medieval-flavored illustrations set the fairy-tale scene and take up enough page space that new and reluctant readers won’t be overwhelmed by text.
A gentle adventure that sets the stage for future quests. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-9691-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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