Bully Bootsie Barker (Bootsie Barker Bites, 1992) returns, this time in the I Can Read series; subtle stereotypes, depicted by a different illustrator (Peggy Rathmann illustrated the original) detract from the humor that made Bootsie a villain readers loved to hate. Lisa asks her friend Bernie to attend ballet class with her because she's afraid of encountering Bootsie. Bootsie spies Bernie and announces, ``I HATE ballet,'' adding, ``I hate boys even more.'' Dance class goes down the tubes, as Bootsie muscles her way through pliÇs and relevÇs. When Bootsie dances out her version of a tornado, Bernie and Lisa let her spin her way right out the door. Bernie's constant seeking of reassurances about ballet class from his basketball coach comes across as apologetic, making ballet a means to improving his game, instead of an end in itself. Bootsie's unrelenting meanness works as well here as it did in her debut, but Karas's illustrations throw the story off: In a classroom where all the other students are relatively small and thin, Bootsie is fat; her bullying becomes synonymous with her size, and sets the stage for mean-spirited associations between looks and behavior. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 30, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-027100-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up.
Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields.
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
An impending school visit by a celebrity chef sends budding cook Ollie into a tailspin. He and his classmates are supposed to bring a favorite family food for show and tell, but his family doesn’t have a clear choice—besides, his little sister Rosy doesn’t like much of anything. What to do? As in their previous two visits to Room 75, Kenah builds suspense while keeping the tone light, and Carter adds both bright notes of color and familiar home and school settings in her cartoon illustrations. Eventually, Ollie winkles favorite ingredients out of his clan, which he combines into a mac-and-cheese casserole with a face on top that draws delighted praise from the class’s renowned guest. As Ollie seems to do his kitchen work without parental assistance, a cautionary tip or two (and maybe a recipe) might not have gone amiss here, but the episode’s mouthwatering climax and resolution will guarantee smiles of contentment all around. (Easy reader. 6-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-053561-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
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