Both colorful and high spirited, this title will give new readers a good run for their money.
In cartoon format and awash with voice and thought bubbles, kids and canines make a day of it at the dog park.
The Super-Duper Dog Park that is. Here our pooch pals can do everything from playing badminton to riding an old-fashioned bicycle, swim underwater, climb trees and howl at the rain. Steinke’s text is geared to be easy reading, but it is not without cleverness: snatches of rhyme or onomatopoeic devices that give a good taste of sound. Sometimes the text can feel almost surreal—while a girl is crying out, “We can bounce!” she is also thinking, “Dogs in the bounce house!” Sometimes there appear to be role-reversals, as when a boy is thinking “Food! Food! I want food!” just as readers might imagine a dog thinks about hunger. The artwork follows the text’s accessible engagement. It's as visually plain-speaking as a Nancy comic strip but also active and varied; the drive to the dog park—kids and dogs only, dog behind the wheel—passes through verdant fields, parched desert and snow-capped alpine ridges.
Both colorful and high spirited, this title will give new readers a good run for their money. (Graphic early reader. 6-9)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60905-093-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Apple
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Any day there’s a new Squish (or Babymouse, for that matter) is Pizza Day.
The single-celled everylad who oozed from the Babymouse series to start one of his own in Squish #1: Super Amoeba (2011) tries hanging with the cool crowd.
Squish’s efforts to turn over a new pseudopod on the first day of school look futile—until an invitation to sit at the lunch table with the six hyper-cool Algae brothers offers escape from both his nerdy moocher buddy Pod’s obsession with asteroid disaster and classmate Peggy Paramecium’s relentless optimism. He discovers the price, though, when one brother relieves him of his prized baseball cap and then orders him to dump nacho cheese all over Pod. Fortunately, Squish has beloved comic-book hero Super Amoeba to provide a moral compass. Mixing framed and unframed panels, the Holms alternate between Squish’s dilemma, illustrated with green highlights, and black and white pages from Squish’s comic, in which Super Amoeba has to make a parallel choice. In the end, both amoebae make the heroic decision. The authors tuck in some morsels of biology, end with instructions for making green slime and provide another sort-of closure for the main plot—as Peggy puts it: “Oh no! The algae just got wiped out by an Asteroid!! That’s so sad!!! Gee, I wonder if tomorrow is pizza day!”
Any day there’s a new Squish (or Babymouse, for that matter) is Pizza Day. (Graphic novel. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-84390-7
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
This early chapter book with plenty of heart and a bit of suspense will appeal to young pet lovers.
After his elderly owner is injured in an accident, Buster the cat gets lost, and a young neighbor sets out to find him.
Buster spent his early months at the Rainbow Street Shelter, also the name of this pet-focused series for readers who have recently made the transition to chapter books. Finally adopted by Mr. Larsen, he loves their life together. Josh, a grade-schooler, is trying to deal with his grief over the death of his pet rabbit when Buster goes missing. Aided by his parents, Josh begins a determined search for the missing pet. Just as in the first work in the series (Lost! A Dog Called Bear, 2011), this effort sympathetically, if briefly, deals with some complex issues, including the responsibilities of pet ownership, death and aging, but always within the framework of an optimistic, childlike perspective appropriate for the target audience. Readers will fully understand that although Josh's focus on finding Buster is at first driven by his own loss, later he genuinely falls in love with the wily cat. Several characters that appeared in the first work in this series make cameo appearances, providing continuity. Attractive black-and-white full- and half-page sketches, one or two per chapter, offer some visual interest as well.
This early chapter book with plenty of heart and a bit of suspense will appeal to young pet lovers. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8932-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
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