A clever story about a child, an insect, and a friendship accompanied by uninspired pictures.
A young boy realizes his first impression of a bug is wrong in this lesson about understanding others.
Fred, a brown-skinned boy with curly hair, is startled when a talking bug lands on his rug. After attacking the intruder with a water blaster, a shoe, and a Halloween costume, Fred slows down long enough to listen to the insect’s plea: “Please, hear the things I have to say. / I’m NOT SO UGLY, you will find. / I’ll prove to you I’m beautiful! / Just listen with an open mind.” The creature encourages Fred to examine him through a magnifying glass, getting a close view of his amazing attributes, including the intriguing features on his back, his cool legs, and his tissue-thin wings. As it turns out, the bug only came into Fred’s room to hide from the rain; after the boy agrees to take the insect outside, he invites his new friend, named Buddy, back for another visit. While Winfield’s (Milly’s Magical View, 2017) smoothly rhyming stanzas introduce an appreciation for insect life, the images by debut illustrators Roberts and Heckenkamp are so cartoonish that the title character bears no resemblance to the actual creature, the leaf-footed bug, featured in photographs here (particularly when Buddy’s family, including a pregnant mother, is depicted in humanized form). But Winfield’s astute poetry can be read as a larger metaphor—accepting others who, at first glance, appear scary because they are different.
A clever story about a child, an insect, and a friendship accompanied by uninspired pictures.Pub Date: May 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9862709-0-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchid House Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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