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CALL ME GORGEOUS!

The creature that inhabits these pages (the ending tag line is the title) is gorgeous indeed, and it is displayed in an inventive piece of bookmaking. The text is straightforward: “I’ve got reindeer antlers / and the ears of a pig,” say the first two-page spreads. The text floats on a sea of white space, along with a close-up view of “a flamingo’s neck” or “a chameleon’s tail.” These images, made in torn, cut and shaped handmade papers and color pencils, are dramatic glimpses of the part in question and not always recognizable. The flamingo’s neck is an undulating curve of shocking pinks. The “ears of a pig” are exquisite, fuzzy, pale-rose–and-ecru objects with only a hint of either ear-ness or piggy-ness. The porcupine’s spines are a dense thicket of inky, gray lines. At the end, the full vision of the “reinde-piggy-porcu-croco-touca-flami-roos-dalma-chameleo-bat-frog” is revealed to be gorgeous indeed. The endpapers hold full images of each of the 11 animals whose parts make up our winged, beaked, antlered and spiny Gorgeous. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-906250-71-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Boxer Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2009

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DIARY OF A SPIDER

The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005

ISBN: 0-06-000153-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005

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HENRY AND MUDGE AND THE STARRY NIGHT

From the Henry and Mudge series

Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)

Pub Date: April 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-689-81175-6

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998

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