Readers may finish this book and move straight to Brooklyn.
This picture book could serve as a tourist’s guide to Brooklyn.
Yotam has the sort of neighbors anyone might wish for: Debbie, who walks her turtle and pit bull at the same time; the man with a big bushy beard; the man with 10 cats. (The neighborhood is multicultural, but Yotam’s family is white.) All the neighbors try to help out when Yotam’s dog runs away after being startled. He had tied Bailey’s leash to a metal chair, which is pretty much the definition of “accident waiting to happen,” and no pet owner will have trouble believing the book was inspired by a true story. The creators—especially VanderPloeg—get every detail right: There’s the woman with the “BUSY LADY” tote bag. There’s Yotam’s anxious fantasy that Bailey is at the Prospect Park Zoo, sleeping on a branch like a monkey. The off-kilter perspective in the illustrations is enchanting but difficult to describe; if Grandma Moses and Maira Kalman could have a baby, that baby would paint this book. The tone of the story moves flawlessly from genuinely hilarious (the scene where Bailey runs with a metal chair even incorporates sound effects) to bittersweet and mysterious: Bailey returns, but she’s slightly injured, and the last line is: “He would never know where she had gone those missing nights, but he knew where she would be sleeping tonight.” Whew.
Readers may finish this book and move straight to Brooklyn. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-55273-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Charming and utterly delightful.
The doggie duo make a welcome return.
In this second entry in the Doggo and Pupper early-reader series, the canine pals’ distinctive personalities come more fully to the fore, and readers discover how close they truly are. Worrywart Pupper may be afraid of giant squirrels, but he longs to be a hero like Wonder Dog, whose exploits he marvels at on TV. He also has real drumming talent, nurtured by Doggo. Doggo is fully realized as a music-loving, tenderhearted, reassuring elder statesman who always has Pupper’s back. In this outing, the pair also enjoy watching the babies in a family of neighboring nesting birds learn to fly. The dog pals’ mutual interest in music, a concert the friends plan to attend in the local park, and a helpless fledgling who hasn’t quite found its wings and requires rescuing—all these plot points culminate in a heartwarming ending that delivers a wonderful message about patience, kindness, and selflessness. Doggo and Pupper may not actually save the world here, but they do offer up a lovely reading experience for emergent readers through simple, dialogue-laden prose that beginning readers should be able to master readily. As in the first series title, the colorful collage and digital illustrations are energetic and endearing. “Pupper’s Guide to Being a Hero,” a 10-step list with suggestions such as “Be helpful” and “Share what you have,” concludes the book. Seen only briefly, the dogs’ owners appear to be light-skinned.
Charming and utterly delightful. (Chapter book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-62100-9
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Young readers will clamor to ride along.
Like an ocean-going “Lion and the Mouse,” a humpback whale and a snail “with an itchy foot” help each other out in this cheery travelogue.
Responding to a plaintive “Ride wanted around the world,” scrawled in slime on a coastal rock, whale picks up snail, then sails off to visit waters tropical and polar, stormy and serene before inadvertently beaching himself. Off hustles the snail, to spur a nearby community to action with another slimy message: “SAVE THE WHALE.” Donaldson’s rhyme, though not cumulative, sounds like “The house that Jack built”—“This is the tide coming into the bay, / And these are the villagers shouting, ‘HOORAY!’ / As the whale and the snail travel safely away. . . .” Looking in turn hopeful, delighted, anxious, awed, and determined, Scheffler’s snail, though tiny next to her gargantuan companion, steals the show in each picturesque seascape—and upon returning home, provides so enticing an account of her adventures that her fellow mollusks all climb on board the whale’s tail for a repeat voyage.
Young readers will clamor to ride along. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8037-2922-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
