Merry, with a bit of zest.
A cheeky riff on “Snow White.”
A witch loathes a princess. There’s no backstory provided, but “this particular princess was getting a little too sweet for her own good”—whatever that means to this witch—and the witch sets out to create a poisoned apple. But she can only collect enough ingredients to poison a single apple, so her plan has only one shot. The scheme starts out fine—hilariously, the witch just hands the apple directly to the princess, who accepts it without question—but it turns into an innocent apple-relay. Princess, dwarfs, deer, and a squirrel pass the apple along, each to the next, in artless generosity to hungry fellow creatures. When the squirrel scampers up a tree with the apple, the witch, desperate to avoid having “put in all that work for nothing,” climbs up too—and suffers a fall that leads her, via crash-induced amnesia, into the very doom she’d planned for the princess. Above the narrative text, occasional speech bubbles contain pictures that function as the story’s only dialogue, including one swear word (don’t tell!). Everyone seems White; the witch is green-skinned with a stereotypical big nose and moles. The illustrations are clever and offbeat—a fawn rides atop its parent’s back—and highlight hatchings, sharp points (including the witch’s nose), and curves (including the princess’s bodice: Whether by dress design or posture, her back always appears arched).
Merry, with a bit of zest. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64567-060-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
The excess smothers any potential oohs and aahs.
It seems even witches like to treat themselves to a bit of TLC after the frenzy of Halloween.
Berger follows a pleasant young witch who “feels worn out and majorly blah,” so “she books herself into the fab-BOO Witch Spa.” The rhyming couplets relentlessly describe every detail, including (but not limited to) “toadstool-and-skunk candles filling the air, / and paths of black rose petals, scattered with care.” She luxuriates in the Broom Bristle Facial, a Serpent Spit Spritzer, and a Scalp Scrub administered by a couple of spiders. Roxas has fun illustrating the action in a wide range of full-bleed spreads, framed pages, and vignettes. A particularly silly scene showcases the witch in a massage chair reading such magazines as Craftsmopolitan and VooDoo-y Fair. Kids will especially like seeing how the witch’s familiar, a black cat, enjoys the spa. But a little cleverness goes a long way. Without any real plot, the spa day begins to drag on. By the time the witch is enjoying lunch (Hex-Mex and Jinx-Drinks), most readers will be ready for this slim tale to be over.
The excess smothers any potential oohs and aahs. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3886-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Flashy but flat.
Little Emma’s cardboard creation conquers the world!
Egg Box Dragon’s eyes are made of “shiny bicycle reflectors,” and most of the rest of him is fashioned from cut-up pieces of an egg carton, painted green. When Emma brings him home, perched atop a pillow in her little red wagon, “everyone admired him enormously.” The local gardener declares, “that critter’s got magic”—a prophetic statement, as the next morning he develops a reputation as the supreme finder of lost articles. These include Emma’s dad’s glasses, next-door-neighbor Mrs. Hapgood’s tortoise, and little Tom’s missing soccer ball (called a “football” in this British import). Aided by the TV news, the Egg Box Dragon’s reputation spreads all the way to the queen. When she loses the biggest diamond in her crown, she sends a royal car to Emma’s house to ask for Egg Box Dragon’s help. He succeeds handily, receiving a medal and a whole chocolate cake. Smith’s illustrations are delightful, with an appealing abundance of white space, and a whole lot of fun with the diminutive draconic protagonist. Perhaps most delicious of all is his untraditional casting of palace personnel, from a queen of color through her evidently mostly female staff, including butler and soldiers. (Emma and her family present white.) But the story, a posthumous offering from the author of Watership Down, feels haphazard, all the way down to Emma’s nonrelationship with her creation.
Flashy but flat. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4449-3840-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hachette UK
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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