A charming enemies-to-friends tale with big personalities.
A troll and a fish realize that they can help instead of harm each other in this Scandinavian-inspired legend.
Oscar the troll, star of Cetas and Kose’s Oscar and the Awful, Horrible Smell (2022), loves to fish. Otto is a fish who plays pranks on anglers, evading all attempts at capture. When Otto arrives at Oscar’s pond, a challenge of wills begins. Otto eats the worms from Oscar’s hook and net, so Oscar tricks Otto with a clear line and hook. “Oscar and Otto both pulled and pulled and pulled.” The line breaks, leaving Oscar frustrated and Otto hurting, with the hook still stuck in his mouth. When Oscar tries ice fishing, unable to wait until spring, the troll falls through the ice—rescued by none other than Otto! Determined to catch the fish to remove the hook, Oscar makes a new plan, this time ending in friendship. The two wily characters, well depicted in both Cetas’ prose and Kose’s gentle cartoon illustrations, will have readers delighted that neither loses in the end. Cetas uses some repeated story beats, building Oscar’s frustration and Otto’s arrogant behavior, and Kose compliments those moments, adding Otto’s peers into the illustrations to show that his lack of humility has not won him many friends. With plenty of repeated words to help young children decipher the vocabulary, this is a good choice for emergent readers.
A charming enemies-to-friends tale with big personalities.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 41
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his...
It’s a wonderful day in the jungle, so why’s Jim Panzee so grumpy?
When Jim woke up, nothing was right: "The sun was too bright, the sky was too blue, and bananas were too sweet." Norman the gorilla asks Jim why he’s so grumpy, and Jim insists he’s not. They meet Marabou, to whom Norman confides that Jim’s grumpy. When Jim denies it again, Marabou points out that Jim’s shoulders are hunched; Jim stands up. When they meet Lemur, Lemur points out Jim’s bunchy eyebrows; Jim unbunches them. When he trips over Snake, Snake points out Jim’s frown…so Jim puts on a grimacelike smile. Everyone has suggestions to brighten his mood: dancing, singing, swinging, swimming…but Jim doesn’t feel like any of that. He gets so fed up, he yells at his animal friends and stomps off…then he feels sad about yelling. He and Norman (who regrets dancing with that porcupine) finally just have a sit and decide it’s a wonderful day to be grumpy—which, of course, makes them both feel a little better. Suzanne Lang’s encouragement to sit with your emotions (thus allowing them to pass) is nearly Buddhist in its take, and it will be great bibliotherapy for the crabby, cranky, and cross. Oscar-nominated animator Max Lang’s cartoony illustrations lighten the mood without making light of Jim’s mood; Jim has comically long arms, and his facial expressions are quite funny.
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his journey. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-553-53786-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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