High entertainment from lowly antonyms.
Colorful canines manufactured from yarn illustrate rhymes about words with opposite meanings.
This excellent companion to Catside Up, Catside Down (2023) opens with four pages of funny verse and even funnier art: “Short dog, Long dog, Huge or tiny. // Itchy on the head, Or scratchy on the hiney.” The final illustration in that series depicts a long, lavender dog with its butt rubbing against a potted cactus, an eye closed in ecstasy. Two crescent-shaped bits of lavender yarn above the hound’s hindquarters serve as motion lines. Similar details throughout are a comical treat for the eye and the ear alike. Large, bold print set against stark white backgrounds—with a few creative exceptions—set off the knitted wonders. Granted, not all are knitted; some varieties are appropriately shaggy. In addition, one page of opposites shows the difference between knitting and purling. The text provides simple, one-word opposites, as well as a few phrases that indicate contrasting ideas—often with marvelously complementary art. The words “Dressing in a suit, / Or grooving in tie-dye” are paired with an image of one dog fixing a tie in a mirror while another sports a vibrant T-shirt and headband. The facial expressions capture both dogs’ essences: uptight and proper vs. goofy and mellow. The ending, where a knitted brown-skinned child cuddles with the pooches, ties up—or knits up—everything perfectly. Listeners and emergent readers alike will be enthralled from beginning to end.
High entertainment from lowly antonyms. (more antonyms) (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781250907202
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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