Out the window goes Pete the pig’s perfectly predictable routine one stormy night when Pickles, a free-spirited fugitive circus elephant, comes crashing in. As chronicled in Breathed’s customarily full-featured digital paintings, which mix his trademark cartoon look with softer edges from image to image, their relationship goes through its ups and downs—both figuratively and, as Pickles has a predilection for taking wild leaps and dives, literally—until a flood puts the two in deadly danger and they save each other’s lives. Both adventures and illustrations flirt with the surreal; Pickles’s escapades involve wildly imaginary journeys, and the two friends find themselves moving in and out of the paintings (a Hokusai wave, Homer’s Night Hawks) hung on Pete’s walls. Hardly a month goes by without at least one new illustrated tale about mismatched companions, but like (for instance) Christa Kempter’s Wally and Mae (9/08), this clash of personalities is enhanced in the art by an extreme size differential, and the result is a comically silly, warmly affirmative package. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-25082-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-059848-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
Hilarity and hijinks abound in this tale about a voracious swine with an overweening yen for hot buttered toast. Mercy is the beloved pet pig of the doting Mr. and Mrs. Watson. When Mercy sneaks into her owner’s bed one night, her added heft causes the bed to fall partway through the ceiling. Although the besotted Watsons assume Mercy is trotting off to seek help, the only search and rescue Mercy seems to care about involves butter and hot bread. In her quest for some midnight munchies, Mercy awakens the crotchety neighbor. Wild chases and mayhem ensue before help arrives in the guise of firefighters. DiCamillo aims for over-the-top fun with her tale of porcine shenanigans, and Van Dusen’s gouache illustrations provide a comical counterpart to the text. The glossy paintings, with exaggerated caricatures and lively colors, complement DiCamillo’s tone, although the scowling, lantern-jawed visage of the crabby neighbor borders on the unpleasant. With vocabulary that may prove too challenging for a novice, DiCamillo’s tale is best suited for those ready to move up. However, the pacing and the action easily make it right for shared reading. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7636-2270-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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