Readers with a soft spot for gross-out humor will find plenty to keep them gagging in Rex's latest novel (Fangbone! Third-Grade Barbarian, 2012) for the early-middle-grade set.
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"The expected blend of boogers, barbarian battles and beanballs may hold some appeal for young boys seeking hijinks over highbrow literature. (Graphic fiction. 9-12)"
A lackluster graphic-novel offering for the young-male reading set, full of gross-outs, slapstick humor and out-of-this world adventures.
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"The bright, digitally colored pencil illustrations hit just the right note of goofy mayhem to please fans of that OTHER George, especially those with an eye for detail. (Picture book. 4-7)"
George, a very large ape, lives happily in the jungle until a man in a funny hat traps him.
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"Once there was a little mummy who wanted to run away. ‘If you run away,' said Mother Mummy, ‘I will get you! For you are my rotten little mummy!' " As he did in 2008's Goodnight Goon, Rex puts a monstrous spin on a Margaret Wise Brown favorite.
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"It's something of a one-joke wonder, but what fun it is, as the goon wreaks a little havoc before being ordered under the bed by the stern little werewolf: "Goodnight monsters everywhere." (Picture book. 7 & up)"
"In the cold gray tomb / There was a gravestone / And a black lagoon / And a picture of— / Martians taking over the moon," begins this snort-inducing parody of one of children's literature's most sacred texts.
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"Rex effectively captures a preschool imagination, and his blocky illustrations, drawn in pencil and colored using Photoshop, are full of little jokes. (Picture book. 3-6)"
"The action, the bright colors and the rhyming sounds add up to a winner well worth sharing with pre-emergent readers. (Picture book. 2-4)"
Rex follows up Truck Duck (2004) with another set of exuberant-looking animals, set against plain backgrounds of bright primary hues and matched to two-word rhymes on stiff card stock.
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"Printed on stiff paper, these mighty machines will rivet fans of all things big, noisy, and on the go. (Picture book. 3-5)"
On the ground, in the water, or through the air, here comes a parade of spread-filling trucks, boats, and other vehicles, each piloted by a smiling animal.
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"They will go to the supermarket"—everything makes perfect sense. (Picture book. 3-6)"
Trains are one of those items that exert an intrinsic fascination, like campfires and ocean waves or Rex's earlier subjects in My Fire Engine (1999) and My Race Car (2000).
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Rex (My Race Car, 2000, etc.) uses the simple sentence structure of the title to describe a full day in the kitchen with three redheaded siblings and their dog.
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"It's not Denise Fleming's Lunch (1992)—or for that matter Peter Spier's classic Gobble, Growl, Grunt (1971)—but it does cheerily celebrate the pleasures of noisy eating while deftly introducing the idea that for us such behavior is an option, not a necessity. (Picture book. 4-6)"
Filling his short, rhymed, repetitive text with chomps, crunches, slurps, slops, and other sounds of chowing down, London (Snuggle Wuggle, 2000, etc.) invites young children to compare their own eating habits to those of a frog, giraffe, aardvark, cow, and other animals.
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"Besides providing a cuddly bedtime story, London's tale also aids little ones in identifying a broad assortment of familiar animals. (Picture book. 2-5)"
London and Rex have teamed up again (Wiggle Waggle, not reviewed) to produce a captivating bedtime tale for the preschool set.
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"Adding an overall note of warmth in vivid red, yellow, and blue are Rex's colored-pencil illustrations, a medium that here is unrivaled in its welcoming and immediate appeal. (Picture book. 3-6)"
For the same audience that took to Peter S°s's Fire Truck (1998), a spirited little educational fantasy from Rex (The Painting Gorilla, 1997).
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"Jovial cartoons add a sunny look to the pages that promise a lot of monkeying around but don't deliver. (Picture book. 3-6)"
From the illustrator of David Getz's Floating Home (p. 380), the story of a gorilla who finds plenty of subject matter for her artwork in the zoo where she lives.
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"What begins as a contrivance catapults readers into an animated, aeronautical adventure and an entertaining look at the science of space travel; it ends as a visionary paradigm for a peaceful planet. (Picture book. 5-9)"
In a unique slant on a typical homework assignment, Getz (Frozen Man, 1994, etc.) and newcomer Rex send a girl to incredible heights for her art project—outer space.
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