Both text and art evoke the best of Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts,” with a 21st-century, environmentalist twist.
Lessons about friendship and inclusion complement lessons about insects and bugs when Maude tries to join Louise’s Bug-of-the-Month Club.
Maude is new to country life, and she is fascinated and delighted to see her first lightning bugs. “They sparkle like little firecrackers,” she says, “but without all the noise.” Maude is undaunted when she learns that the first step to auditioning for neighbor Louise’s club is to prepare a speech about a bug. She happily researches fireflies at the library and presents a well-researched speech to Louise and the other club members. From the start, only Louise acts cool toward Maude. That coolness evolves into hostility when Louise insists that the other members list all the reasons that fireflies are not technically bugs…and then summarily releases Maude’s 11 coddled fireflies. Sweet-natured Maude channels her anger at Louise into an inspired campaign to protect fireflies, and by the end of the story, even Louise has become an ardent champion of the cause. This is more an illustrated story than a picture book, with a text chock full of fascinating facts about fireflies and how to help them. The cartoonlike children exhibit various skin tones, hair types, and eye shapes, and they are set against uncluttered, pleasant outdoor backgrounds; Maude has beige skin and extremely curly brown hair while Louise’s skin is pale and her blonde hair is straight.
Both text and art evoke the best of Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts,” with a 21st-century, environmentalist twist. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-374-38062-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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