A nine-year-old boy with a sense of humor is hard enough to bring to the printed page (or snag in a library), but if you'll latch on to a live one, Betsy Byars has his match. Tommy is not the first hung-up juvenile hero but he is one of the best, and he remembers that summer with Aunt Millie, Uncle Fred and Hazeline with straight-from-the-(skinny)-shoulder sincerity. A non-athlete who knows animals come from miles around just to chase him, he deplores the idea of summer on a farm while his parents bicycle through Europe and friend Perle stays at home. But he goes ("Control," his father says) and spends the first two days saying he's "just fine" and wondering when they'll stop asking. It's not what he does (see a certain black fox fifteen times, not all included) but how he tells it that makes him such a stand-out, and his digressions (watching an ant on Petie's sneakers, counting hand wrinkles to calculate the day he'll die) are steady, smooth and well-spaced. The laughs are most frequent in the beginning, which gets a reader's attention, and the sly, slow build-up to the final black fox episode is as firm as you could ask for.
Pub Date: Oct. 14, 1968
ISBN: 0571214797
Page Count: 157
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1968
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come.
Little Blue Truck and his pal Toad meet friends old and new on a springtime drive through the country.
This lift-the-flap, interactive entry in the popular Little Blue Truck series lacks the narrative strength and valuable life lessons of the original Little Blue Truck (2008) and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (2009). Both of those books, published for preschoolers rather than toddlers, featured rich storylines, dramatic, kinetic illustrations, and simple but valuable life lessons—the folly of taking oneself too seriously, the importance of friends, and the virtue of taking turns, for example. At about half the length and with half as much text as the aforementioned titles, this volume is a much quicker read. Less a story than a vernal celebration, the book depicts a bucolic drive through farmland and encounters with various animals and their young along the way. Beautifully rendered two-page tableaux teem with butterflies, blossoms, and vibrant pastel, springtime colors. Little Blue greets a sheep standing in the door of a barn: “Yoo-hoo, Sheep! / Beep-beep! / What’s new?” Folding back the durable, card-stock flap reveals the barn’s interior and an adorable set of twin lambs. Encounters with a duck and nine ducklings, a cow with a calf, a pig with 10 (!) piglets, a family of bunnies, and a chicken with a freshly hatched chick provide ample opportunity for counting and vocabulary work.
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-544-93809-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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