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
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
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
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