Parenting skills come in handy even for immense, green, fire-breathing monsters.
A little kaiju yearns to join its mom in saving Earth and other good deeds.
It seems the narrator’s mom at one time was “a little…wild” (“Where did you even find that?” she exclaims, rolling her eyes at a collection of clippings with headlines like “GARGANTUA STRIKES AGAIN”). But now she helps out by resetting knocked-over buildings, tickling rampaging space robots into acquiescence, and blasting the occasional giant asteroid before it hits with her fiery atomic breath. “I want to grow up to be just like my mom,” proclaims the cute little narrator—who chafes at being allowed to cheer her exploits only from a distance. The diminutive lizard-monster therefore determinedly sets out to prove that it’s not a baby any more. Fortunately, Mom comes through in the clutch. After saving her overly ambitious mite from being smooshed beneath the condemned skyscraper it manages to knock down, instead of meting out punishment she cannily suggests that maybe they should work together from then on. “And that’s just what we do,” the dinky dino concludes, adding a pint-sized blast to its mom’s roaring exhalation. Only carping critics will complain that Sylvester models his round-headed narrator and its smiling, much bigger single parent more on Godzilla and Godzilla Jr. than the Gargantua of film in his cartoon pictures. They are missing out on terrific fun.
Parenting skills come in handy even for immense, green, fire-breathing monsters. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77306-182-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
A tongue-in-cheek bildungsroman about celebrating differences and the underrated superpowers of gentleness and sweetness.
Kaijus—giant Godzilla-like creatures—are supposed to have fearsome powers like atomic breath, the ability to summon storms, and magnetism—but not young Anzu.
Instead, he was born with the power of finding “beauty in small things.” Finally old enough to be assigned his own personal city to terrorize, Anzu hopes to impress his fond parents. But instead of inflicting fiery destruction on the tiny kodamalike residents at his feet, the best he can do is rain garlands of flowers down on them. He tries to wreak havoc by uprooting a tree but instead ends up creating a peaceful playground of blossoming animal topiaries. “I’ll never strike fear,” Anzu frets. “Am I even a kaiju?” Young readers may well share his doubts since, despite towering over the city of lumpy buildings made from low mounds of dirt, he and his family look more like cute, plump stuffies than scary reptilian beasts. When Anzu does at last manage a little devastation, his feeling of triumph is short-lived—and so, to restore joy and laughter, he exerts his special flower powers with surprising, and satisfying, results. The text is engaging and heartwarming without being cloying. The bright, colorful illustrations are rendered in watercolor and ink. Full-bleed artwork is interspersed with panels, which, along with the use of narrative boxes, lend a graphic feel to the presentation.
A tongue-in-cheek bildungsroman about celebrating differences and the underrated superpowers of gentleness and sweetness. (Graphic picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-77612-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
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