Emergent readers with tightly limited word lists are notoriously difficult to write, especially when two of the words are already firmly enshrined in the shadow of that extremely well-known cat in the striped hat. Knudsen (Dinosaur Days, not reviewed, etc.) does a credible job of creating a real story and an appealing main character, a cat named Ralph, with just a few simple words. Ralph seems to be living on his own in a big-city park in the winter, and he wants a cozy home of his own: someplace high, warm, and safe. He checks out some locations where he isn’t welcome (a baby’s pram and a squirrel family’s tree house), and then finds an ideal spot curled up on top of a bald man’s head, tied on with a striped scarf. Haley’s breezy watercolor and ink illustrations make this unlikely scenario believable, with a charming snow-covered park filled with strolling adults and children of different ethnic groups. Reading teachers may question the use of the name Ralph (with the non-decodable ph sound) and contractions at this beginning level of easy readers, as both these challenges are usually found farther along in structured reading programs. There is always a need in every library for the earliest beginning readers, and the attractive illustrations give this story extra warmth. Ralph might even find his way into story hours, paired up with that superstar cat or even with Jack Gantos’s Rotten Ralph (1976), a very different kind of cat. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-307-26115-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Golden Books/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
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