A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At least he was let out of his room.
In an obvious and clumsy remake of Where the Wild Things Are, a rude young “pirate” is consigned to his room until he learns better manners.
Dressed in a store-bought pirate outfit and waving a toy cutlass, Billy’s obnoxious “Back away from me bounty, poppet” to his mother—visible in Tans’ bland, literal paintings only from the neck down—results in lunchtime banishment to his bedroom. It is soon transformed into a succession of ships and nautical settings. The author’s attempt to sidestep potential controversy by having Billy sing out “Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of scum!” really only calls attention to the original’s reference to alcohol, and his stuffed parrot’s cries of “Booty! Booty!” will definitely induce giggles in modern audiences, for whom the word has a meaning that is likely not what was intended. Waking up hungry to the scent of “a dinner fit for a prince,” Billy finally makes a quick change to another (also plainly store-bought) costume for a grand re-entrance: “Dear Queen, your prince has arrived with hands washed. Many thanks for the banquet.”
At least he was let out of his room. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-58980-982-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pelican
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Audiences can skip this amateur hour at the National Symphony.
When Maestro Mouse loses his baton, a group of young concertgoers conduct a search through all the sections of the orchestra.
The Barneses, whose mice have previously explored U.S. history and the workings of our federal government, now turn their attention to Washington, D.C., culture, setting this new story in a slightly altered Kennedy Center. (The exterior is Carnegie Hall in New York City; the inside a clear representation of the Center’s Concert Hall and vast corridors, though the bust of Kennedy has been replaced by one of Beethoven.) This well-meant introduction to a symphony orchestra is hampered by awkward language and unskilled illustrations. The lost-and-found story is written in rhyming fourteeners—a verse pattern that requires unnaturally lengthy lines and is difficult to write smoothly or read aloud comfortably. The conductor’s facial features differ from page to page, his shirt buttons occasionally change orientation, and, on one page, he’s lost his boutonniere. Section by section, mouse children, differentiated by their clothing, scurry through the orchestra seeking the baton. Usually the illustrations follow the text, but the larger stringed instruments don’t appear until three spreads after their mention in verse. Scott Hennesy and Joe Lanzisero play the same premise more skillfully in The Cat’s Baton Is Gone (2012).
Audiences can skip this amateur hour at the National Symphony. (notes for parents and teachers, matching game, facts, a page for a written response) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62157-036-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Patriot Press
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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