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THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF

Name: THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF
Author: B.G. Hennessy
ISBN: 0-689-87433-2

adapted by B.G. Hennessy & illustrated by Boris Kulikov ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

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Never has this favorite tale been told with such animation and charming humor. The shepherd boy is bored, really bored. He tries to teach the sheep tricks, but they aren’t interested. He needs excitement so he cries WOLF and everyone comes running; then he cries TWO WOLVES, and the townsfolk run lickety-split to help again. And you know the rest of the story—on his third alarm, no response. Only this time there are THREE HUNGRY WOLVES, and the boy has to hunt all day for his missing sheep by himself. The last spread, wordless, shows the boy searching the pasture while the sheep are stacked up in a tree. Kulikov’s inventive watercolor-and-gouache illustrations give “sheepish grins” new dimension, as the expressions on the animals’ faces are unabashedly funny. It’s the in-your-face angles and perspectives that spin the drama, from the foot-view of the boy picking his nose to sheep-leaping to a pesky fly; even the typeface name, “Uncle Stinky,” fits the romp. Kids will cry for repeated readings of this amusing account. Ovine divine—and darn clever. (Picture book/folktale. 4-7)

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-689-87433-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
CORDUROY TAKES A BOW
by Viola Davis & B.G. Hennessy ; illustrated by Jody Wheeler

- BOOK REVIEW
A CHRISTMAS WISH FOR CORDUROY
by B.G. Hennessy ; illustrated by Jody Wheeler

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SCARY PLACES MAP BOOK
by B.G. Hennessy & illustrated by Erwin Madrid

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UNICORN WINGS

by Mallory Loehr & illustrated by Pamela Silin-Palmer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 24, 2006

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The can’t-miss subject of this Step into Reading series entry—a unicorn with a magic horn who also longs for wings—trumps its text, which is dry even by easy-reader standards. A boy unicorn, whose horn has healing powers, reveals his wish to a butterfly in a castle garden, a bluebird in the forest and a snowy white swan in a pond. Falling asleep at the edge of the sea, the unicorn is visited by a winged white mare. He heals her broken wing and she flies away. After sadly invoking his wish once more, he sees his reflection: “He had big white wings!” He flies off after the mare, because he “wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’ ” Perfectly suiting this confection, Silin-Palmer’s pictures teem with the mass market–fueled iconography of what little girls are (ostensibly) made of: rainbows, flowers, twinkly stars and, of course, manes down to there. (Easy reader. 4-7)

Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006

ISBN: 0-375-83117-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
BABY FACES
by Mallory Loehr & illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton

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THE GINGERBREAD MAN LOOSE IN THE SCHOOL

by Laura Murray & illustrated by Mike Lowery ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2011

Teachers looking for a new way to start off the school year will eat this one up.

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In Murray’s children’s debut, when a gingerbread man made by schoolchildren gets left behind at recess, he decides he has to find his class: “I’ll run and I’ll run, / As fast as I can. / I can catch them! I’m their / Gingerbread Man!”

And so begins his rollicking rhyming adventure as he runs, limps, slides and skips his way through the school, guided on his way by the friendly teachers he meets. Flattened by a volleyball near the gym, he gets his broken toe fixed by the kindly nurse and then slides down the railing into the art teacher’s lunch. Then it’s off to the principal’s office, where he takes a spin in her chair before she arrives. “The children you mentioned just left you to cool. / They’re hanging these posters of you through the school.” The principal takes him back to the classroom, where the children all welcome him back. The book’s comic-book layout suits the elementary-school tour that this is, while Lowery’s cartoon artwork fits the folktale theme. Created with pencil, screen printing and digital color, the simple illustrations give preschoolers a taste of what school will be like. While the Gingerbread Man is wonderfully expressive, though, the rather cookie-cutter teachers could use a little more life.

Teachers looking for a new way to start off the school year will eat this one up. (Picture book. 4-7)