Children who are familiar with the traditional story will find this a fresh, funny alternative.
The traditional story of “The Three Little Pigs” is recast with pug puppies instead of pigs and a malevolent, white cat in the role of the Big, Bad Wolf.
Digitally composed illustrations use photographs of the appealing pugs imposed on illustrated backgrounds, using a contemporary palette of pastel shades and effective use of white space. The Big, Bad Cat accessorizes with magenta 10-gallon hat and boots, and her outsized personality is conveyed both through her ferocious appearance and apt textual descriptions: “What a sight! Sharp, scratchy claws, a terrible twitching tail, and mean beady eyes.” The pugs, Bubbles (straw house), Bandit (stick house), and Beauty (brick house), set off to build their own homes, carrying backpacks of food that entrance the cat. She uses a hair dryer to blow down the straw house, a leaf blower to destroy the house built of sticks, and a huge fan and a jumbo jet to attack the sturdy brick house. The action concludes when the cat’s owner calls her home, followed by the surprise introduction of new additions to the cat’s family home—three familiar pug puppies. The book’s design includes speech balloons and display type integrated into the text for emphasis, as in the curlicue typeface chosen for the cat’s owner’s doting blandishments. The pugs are undeniably appealing with their worried facial expressions, and the cat is crafty and amusing rather than truly scary.
Children who are familiar with the traditional story will find this a fresh, funny alternative. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-6801-0043-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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