In a small village at the far end of Iceland, there are plenty of eggs for the ladies to use in cooking, except they are difficult to gather from the cliffs where the wild birds lay them. So the ladies buy chickens who lay many eggs. But the chickens are so happy that they forget they are chickens and start acting just like the ladies: picking blueberries, attending birthday parties and singing sheep asleep. Then they stop laying eggs. The women come up with a clever idea to fool the chickens and solve the problem. As the women exercise, the hens do likewise, until their wings are strengthened and the ladies remind them that they are birds and can fly and they do—to the cliffs where the women, now also strong, can gather their eggs. Gunnella’s folk-style oil paintings embellish the wry humor of the brief text, depicting the plump women with aprons, thick legs and babushkas. Brush strokes add to the peasant look and the simple, expressive chicken faces are very beak-in-cheek. Gunnella and McMillan have hatched an “egg-cellent” tale of ingenuity and resourcefulness. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-58581-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walter Lorraine/Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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