Hysterical—again.
Birds of a feather (along with a cantankerous gentleman and his pesky squirrels) flock together at this tropical destination.
Old Man Fookwire dips into a depression when his beloved feathered companions fly south. His impish squirrels take to the sky in makeshift machines (utilizing, in part, a pine cone and soda bottle) and follow the birds. After the squirrels call collect, Fookwire putters down the highway (at 12 mph) to join the birds and the pests. Once in Santa Vaca, he discovers the fiery coco, kiki and caramba birds and starts to paint them. Forgetting sunscreen and forgoing water, Mr. Fookwire turns tomato-red and suffers from heatstroke. The squirrels perform triage, fanning him with palm branches and dumping fluids into his parched mouth, before piling him into his sports car and driving him back north at record speeds. Fookwire's “Thooooooose daaaaaaarn squirrrrrels!” says it all about their love-hate relationship. Visual slapstick and a deadpan text combine with trademark Fookwire expressions (“great googly-moogly!”) to make this third Darn Squirrels outing a winner. Watercolor, gouache and colored-pencil spreads pepper the beach with individual grains of sand. The birds' flamboyance (one a bird-sized replica of the ornery old man) is the perfect complement to the sweltering heat.
Hysterical—again. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-67823-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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