Flat, stylized illustrations and a meandering yet linear plot proclaim Boyle’s background in animation (he’s the creator of Nick Jr.’s Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!). Hugo is a purple hippopotamus with a huge head and small, blocky body. Hugo, his dog, their home on a hill, the town below and its residents all have the deliberately retro charm of many contemporary cartoons. The characters (all animals) have thick, black outlines that appear to advantage on the sometimes busy compositions, which feature a mix of double-page spreads and vignettes of various sizes. The relatively subdued palette allows readers to easily follow the long, red string that propels the plot. This is essentially a one-joke book, though the long-ish text might suggest otherwise. The mysterious string that leads Hugo through the town and introduces him to a number of new friends turns out to be “a very long thread from his old underwear.” Tomorrow’s adventures are implied in the blue string that leads from Hugo’s rug to his bedroom window. Undemanding but potentially popular. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: March 23, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-375-83423-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
The world is ripe for exploring with friends, but Puzzlehead (his head is a toppled capital E) can’t seem to find his groove. His friend Bob invites him to spin on a swinglike contraption, but it just makes Puzzlehead dizzy, and Sue’s bouncing game is a headache-in-the-making. Finally, he finds his “perfect place”—a capital E–shaped hole in the ground into which he can stick his head: “Puzzlehead wanted to stay there forever.” Alas, he gets stuck there, upside-down and alone. When his four friends band together to pull him out—POP!—they all go flying, and—BLAM!—hit the ground, all their strangely shaped heads fitting together like puzzle pieces into a big rectangle. “I think I found the best Puzzlehead place of all,” Puzzlehead proclaims. Perhaps the author is suggesting to young readers that what feels like their “perfect place” may not be their “best place?” Colorful, digitally rendered, geometric creatures scamper and play abstractly like a Calder mobile, but the text is rather flat, and the message is either intriguingly multifaceted or just, well, puzzling. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: April 21, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-0936-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
“One dark and snarly night” Liam, whose father is away, attempts to fend off the bear he imagines is threatening his sleeping mother. After she falls “snore asleep,” he hears a “ROAWR!” Liam calls for his mom, but she continues snoring, so naturally he packs up a bag containing his shovel, sticks and string and double-cake and heads off on the lookout. As a forest grows around his room, Wild Things–style, Liam manages to trap the bear in a hole and feed it until it falls asleep. It seems Liam enjoys a good bear hunt, and this big grizzly bears a remarkable resemblance to Liam’s eyepatch-wearing teddy. As lively and quirky—and crackingly good as a read-aloud—as Liam’s adventure is, however, Joosse and Jutte do not navigate the boundary between reality and imagination as masterfully as Sendak did. The ink, watercolor and acrylic illustrations, boldly outlined in cartoon fashion, are full of humor but do not assist enough in visually delineating what’s real from what’s not. Liam’s unconscious is a distinctly more fearful place than Max’s, marking this as not for the easily frightened. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-24777-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
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