Witty wordplay guaranteed to tease and tickle.
This playful collection of 14 ingeniously illustrated “wordles” introduces readers to homophones.
Opening with a definition of wordles as “groups of words that sound exactly the same but mean different things,” the text immediately offers examples “I scream/ice cream” and “heroes/he rows.” Commencing the game, it challenges readers to guess the second wordle of each subsequent pair before turning the page. Guessing “rain, dear” for “reindeer” may be obvious, but other wordles prove more challenging. Guessing “icy” for “I see” is not a stretch, but a second option of “Aye, sea!” may be, without the visual context of a pirate ship. Indeed, the zany, clever multimedia illustrations, with their deceptively childlike figures drawn in stark, black outlines, create a humorous visual context for each wordle, spinning surprising links between verbal juxtapositions. “A family affair” is visually represented by a line of people wearing assorted headgear. Its wordle, “a family of hair,” is visually cued with the same line of people raising their chapeaux to reveal wild hair. Likewise, the illustration for “princess cape” of a creepy princess in a cape trying to kiss a knight tied up in yarn is followed by the wordle “prince escape,” showing the foiled princess throwing up her arms as the knight’s foot disappears through a door.
Witty wordplay guaranteed to tease and tickle. (Picture book. 5 & up)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4521-0004-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
Quietly contemplative and thoroughly lovely.
A child finds adventure and a change of perspective on a dreary day.
Clouds cover everything in a palette of unending gray, creating a sense of ennui and gloom. A child stands alone, head down, feeling as gray as the day, and decides to ride through town on an old bike. Pops of color throughout the grayscale illustrations go unnoticed—there are yellow leaves scattered about, and the parking lot is filled with bright yellow buses, but this child, who has skin the grayish white of the page, sees only the empty playground, creaky swings, a sad merry-go-round, and lonely seesaws. But look—there’s a narrow winding path just beyond the fence, something to explore. There are things to be noticed, leaves to be crunched, and discoveries to be made. Imagination takes over, along with senses of wonderment and calm, as the child watches a large blue bird fly over the area. The ride home is quite different, joyful and filled with color previously ignored, reaffirming the change in the rider’s outlook. The descriptive, spare text filled with imagery and onomatopoeia is well aligned with well-rendered art highlighting all the colors that brighten the not-so-gray day and allowing readers to see what the protagonist struggles to understand, that “anything can happen…on a gray day.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Quietly contemplative and thoroughly lovely. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781797210896
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative,...
Can this really be the first time readers meet the Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County? Cousins and veteran sleuths Otto and Sheed Alston show us that we are the ones who are late to their greatness.
These two black boys are coming to terms with the end of their brave, heroic summer at Grandma’s, with a return to school just right around the corner. They’ve already got two keys to the city, but the rival Epic Ellisons—twin sisters Wiki and Leen—are steadily gaining celebrity across Logan County, Virginia, and have in hand their third key to the city. No way summer can end like this! These young people are powerful, courageous, experienced adventurers molded through their heroic commitment to discipline and deduction. They’ve got their shared, lifesaving maneuvers committed to memory (printed in a helpful appendix) and ready to save any day. Save the day they must, as a mysterious, bendy gentleman and an oversized, clingy platypus have been unleashed on the city of Fry, and all the residents and their belongings seem to be frozen in time and place. Will they be able to solve this one? With total mastery, Giles creates in Logan County an exuberant vortex of weirdness, where the commonplace sits cheek by jowl with the utterly fantastic, and populates it with memorable characters who more than live up to their setting.
This can’t be the last we ever hear of the Legendary Alston Boys of the purely surreal Logan County—imaginative, thrill-seeking readers, this is a series to look out for. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-46083-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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