Despite believable action and attractive pictures, this feels more like an amusing anecdote than a full-fledged adventure.
A Parisian tale inspired by a real-life feline.
An unnamed black-and-white cat is given to a (mostly unseen) girl as a gift. Balloons, ribbons and confetti suggest a birthday may be involved, but the focus shifts immediately to the cat as he inspects his new surroundings and makes himself at home. In a series of nearly wordless panels, he checks out cozy spots to nap, perch or hide and experiments with climbing. First it’s furniture (the bathroom sink, an armoire), then he ventures outside and jumps from the balcony to the neighboring roof and beyond. The cityscape reveals that the cat lives in Paris, which may or may not resonate with young readers, depending on whether they recognize the Eiffel Tower. A chance encounter with a pigeon results in an accident that wounds the cat’s pride and curbs his excursions until a second unexpected meeting with an avian interloper restores his sense of adventure. Small touches of humor reward careful observation. Mader’s use of multiple panels interspersed with double-page spreads provides a sense of momentum, but the brevity of the text can feel choppy, particularly when paired with the relatively static pastel illustrations.
Despite believable action and attractive pictures, this feels more like an amusing anecdote than a full-fledged adventure. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-14799-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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