Despite incongruities, Rubin’s silly story and McCreery’s animation-quality artwork will attract eager fans.
The monster with a taste for goats’ blood is at the center of this bilingual tale.
On an isolated ranch, Carla and her dad, Héctor, wake up to an ominous sound. The next day their wide-eyed goats are trembling in a tree—all but one. Carla cycles around their property until she comes upon what looks like a goat pancake. Aside from its head (“¡Blaaaaa!”), the goat is a boneless puddle. “¡EL CHUPACABRAS!” Héctor cries, with the handkerchief-munching cabra draped limply across his arms. A flower peddler offers protective magic dust, but Héctor overdoes it. After a few sneezes, the unhappy goats are taller than the distant town’s church—and they have enormous appetites. The story plays fast and loose with the legend, taking place “a long time ago,” even though the chupacabras reportedly first appeared in Puerto Rico in 1995. Rubin’s fully bilingual text weaves English together with Spanish with no discernable pattern, often switching in the middle of a sentence, which may prove a challenge for some. McCreery’s humorous illustrations (the goats are hilarious) are sometimes at odds with the text. The ranch appears to be in the desert Southwest, but Carla quickly rides her bicycle to a convenient forest. After a goat eats the bell tower, the narrative states there was no “permanent damage.” The chupacabras, described as a “tiny gentleman,” is a visual mix of the Grinch and a simian reptile; Carla and Héctor have brown skin and straight, black hair.
Despite incongruities, Rubin’s silly story and McCreery’s animation-quality artwork will attract eager fans. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-53929-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Like the last sip of a chocolate milkshake, it’s very satisfying.
A story-reading dragon—what’s not to like?
Duncan the Dragon loves to read. But the stories so excite him, his imagination catches fire—and so do his books, leaving him wondering about the endings. Does the captain save the ship? Do aliens conquer the Earth? Desperate to reach the all-important words “The End” (“like the last sip of a chocolate milk shake”), he tries reading in the refrigerator, in front of a bank of electric fans, and even in a bathtub filled with ice. Nothing works. He decides to ask a friend to read to him, but the raccoon, possum, and bull all refuse. Weeping, Duncan is ready to give up, but one of his draconic tears runs “split-splat into a mouse,” a book-loving mouse! Together they battle sea monsters, dodge icebergs, and discover new lands, giving rise to a fast friendship. Driscoll’s friendly illustrations are pencil sketches painted in Adobe Photoshop; she varies full-bleed paintings with vignettes surrounded by white space, imaginary scenes rendered in monochrome to set them apart. Duncan himself is green, winged, and scaly, but his snout is unthreateningly bovine, and he wears red sneakers with his shoelaces untied—a nicely vulnerable touch. Though there are lots of unusual friendship stories in picture books, the vivid colors, expressive faces, and comic details make this one likely to be a storytime hit.
Like the last sip of a chocolate milkshake, it’s very satisfying. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-75507-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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