Funny and flip, like Saturday morning cartoons.
Everyone knows the Big Bad Wolf is…well bad, right?
When the Three Little Pigs’ houses are trashed, who in Fairylandia is the prime suspect? It’s Wolfgang, the Big Bad Wolf (though don’t call him that; he’s trying to reform—he likes gardening these days). Capt. Kreplach, captain of Prince Tyrone’s guard, gives Wolfgang until sundown to prove his innocence…despite the total absence of evidence of his guilt beyond his reputation. To avoid a lifetime diet of porridge in the prince’s dungeon, Wolfgang starts investigating. When he arrives at Dieter Pig’s house of bricks, Wolfgang finds it cleaned of all evidence by the Little Pigs’ mother. (Incidentally, the “little pigs” are not particularly little, and they run the successful PorkerBuilt construction company.) His investigation techniques earn him a mop in the face from said mother. No one in Fairylandia is likely to treat him as other than suspect No.1…until Ferkel Pig, the Three Little Pigs’ eager little brother, offers to assist. The two reluctant comrades set out across Fairylandia, but will they find the actual culprit in time? Hale, author/illustrator of the successful, Edgar-nominated Chet Gecko series, clearly has a lot of fun with this dip into fairy tales for his new series of humorous mysteries. A few of the jokes might fly over the heads of the target audience, but that just makes this a great read-together chapter book.
Funny and flip, like Saturday morning cartoons. (Fantasy/mystery. 6-9)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-66537-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
A funny and timely primer for budding activists.
Problems are afoot at Emily Dickinson Elementary School, and it’s up to Bea Garcia to gather the troops and fight.
Bea Garcia and her best friend, Judith Einstein, sit every day under the 250-year-old oak tree in their schoolyard and imagine a face in its trunk. They name it “Emily” after their favorite American poet. Bea loves to draw both real and imagined pictures of their favorite place—the squirrels in the tree, the branches that reach for the sky, the view from the canopy even though she’s never climbed that high. Until the day a problem boy does climb that high, pelting the kids with acorns and then getting stuck. Bert causes such a scene that the school board declares Emily a nuisance and decides to chop it down. Bea and Einstein rally their friends with environmental facts, poetry, and artwork to try to convince the adults in their lives to change their minds. Bea must enlist Bert if she wants her plan to succeed. Can she use her imagination and Bert’s love of monsters to get him in line? In Bea’s fourth outing, Zemke gently encourages her protagonist to grow from an artist into an activist. Her energy and passion spill from both her narration and her frequent cartoons, which humorously extend the text. Spanish-speaking Bea’s Latinx, Einstein and Bert present white, and their classmates are diverse.
A funny and timely primer for budding activists. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 6-9)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2941-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
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A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
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