by Abby Levine & illustrated by Nancy Cote ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1998
A good choice for curriculum-boosting an underrated holiday. Poor Gretchen Groundhog is very shy, but this year, it’s her turn to pop out of the hole on February 2nd to tell everyone whether there will be six more weeks of winter or an early spring. Great-Uncle Gus, too old for the job, offers Gretchen plenty of encouragement, but she just doesn’t think she can manage with all those people. Then her human friend, Hester, the town historian’s daughter, comes to visit with a box of old writings. Gretchen reads the words of other shy groundhogs from the past, e.g., Goody Groundhog who came on the Mayflower, George Groundhog who served at Valley Forge, etc. Gretchen realizes that she can face the crowds, just as her illustrious ancestors did, even before the official inauguration of Groundhog Day in 1887. Illustrations in soft pencil show appealing townspeople, an elegantly dressed little groundhog, and a charming burrow, complete with a picture window, stone fireplace, and a computer with Internet access (“You Have Mail”). Simple and sweet. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8075-3058-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1998
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by April Jones Prince & illustrated by François Roca ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2005
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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by Cornelia Funke ; illustrated by Kerstin Meyer ; translated by Oliver Latsch ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 23, 2015
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure.
It’s not truffles but doubloons that tickle this porcine wayfarer’s fancy.
Funke and Meyer make another foray into chapter-book fare after Emma and the Blue Genie (2014). Here, mariner Stout Sam and deckhand Pip eke out a comfortable existence on Butterfly Island ferrying cargo to and fro. Life is good, but it takes an unexpected turn when a barrel washes ashore containing a pig with a skull-and-crossbones pendant around her neck. It soon becomes clear that this little piggy, dubbed Julie, has the ability to sniff out treasure—lots of it—in the sea. The duo is pleased with her skills, but pride goeth before the hog. Stout Sam hands out some baubles to the local children, and his largess attracts the unwanted attention of Barracuda Bill and his nasty minions. Now they’ve pignapped Julie, and it’s up to the intrepid sailors to save the porker and their own bacon. The succinct word count meets the needs of kids looking for early adventure fare. The tale is slight, bouncy, and amusing, though Julie is never the piratical buccaneer the book’s cover seems to suggest. Meanwhile, Meyer’s cheery watercolors are as comfortable diagramming the different parts of a pirate vessel as they are rendering the dread pirate captain himself.
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure. (Adventure. 7-9)Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37544-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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