A silly, hollow and ultimately unsatisfying tale.
A sloppy story about an obese cat that helps two people find each other and fall in love.
This app from the Netherlands (which can be read in English, German or Dutch) is apparently a digital adaptation of a previously published picture book. Dan and his young daughter Rose have a problem. Their corpulent cat is so fat he won’t budge from the sofa. The British-accented narrator explains, “Rose would come over and tickle his botty [sic] / so the cat could sit up and pee in a potty.” The gigantic cat lifts his rear end over the arm of the couch and urinates in a bowl a held by Rose (a bit much for the intended preschool audience). Dan takes the couch to a secondhand store (cat and all); the owner, Ann, becomes rich and famous due to the cat; Dan and Ann end up meeting and fall in love on the spot. Many of the rhymes are a stretch (night/cried, for example), and the story line is so precipitous, slapdash and incongruous it’s difficult to embrace, making one wonder if a lot got lost in translation (which is uncredited). Touch-activated animations are minimal and do little to nothing to drive the story. On the positive side, illustrations are crisp, and navigation is smooth, but neither asset is enough to save this app from the “skip it” pile.
A silly, hollow and ultimately unsatisfying tale. (iPad storybook app. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Orange Books
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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