Sweet but less than memorable.
Helping a sick pal feel better can be tough.
A youngster describes a friendship with a yeti. The unusual bond has advantages: Yeti can reach the highest branches to pick the tastiest fruit, and, when sitting on Yeti’s shoulders while watching an outdoor movie, the child has “the best seat in the house.” Having a yeti BFF can be challenging, however. Every year Yeti gets a bad cold, characterized by frightful chills, coughs, and sneezes. This year, the young narrator is determined to cure him and stocks up on supplies. The child’s preparations—sweaters, blankets, even a hot tub—don’t work. The youngster persists, proffering hot cocoa, a seat before the fireplace, and “cross-continental trips to tropical islands!” (Since our protagonist is a kid, this doesn’t work out; an imaginary journey suffices.) Eventually, the narrator abandons hope for a cure, but then inspiration hits: giving Yeti his own “best seat in the house”—sitting with him in a makeshift tent and watching TV together, surrounded by some of the child’s “cures.” This thin story is somewhat light on plot, and the conclusion falls a bit flat. Still, it emphasizes friendship, which many readers will appreciate. The concept of a relationship between human and cryptid may spark interest in some children, but it’s not well developed. The cartoonish illustrations are lively, and this blue yeti is endearing and non-menacing. The girl is light-skinned.
Sweet but less than memorable. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781645952497
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pixel+Ink
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
The premise is worn gossamer thin, and the joke stopped being funny, if it ever was, long ago.
A fairy tending their garden manages to survive a gaggle of young intruders.
In halting cadences typical of the long-running—and increasingly less amusing—How To Catch… series, the startled mite—never seen face-on in Elkerton’s candy-colored pictures and indeterminate of gender—wonders about the racially diverse interlopers: “Do they know that I can grant wishes? / Or that a new fairy is born when they giggle?” The visual action rather belies the sweetness of the verses, the palette, the bright flowers, and the multicolored resident zebras and unicorns, as after repeated, elaborately designed efforts to trap or even shoot (with a peashooter) the fairy come to naught, the laughing children are escorted out of the garden beneath a rising moon. The encounter ends on a (perhaps unconsciously) ominous note. “Hope they find their way back sometime,” the butterfly-winged narrator concludes. “And just maybe next time they’ll stay!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
The premise is worn gossamer thin, and the joke stopped being funny, if it ever was, long ago. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781728263205
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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