Readers should hop on past this series opener.
Sky’s friends try to cheer her up when she isn’t chosen for a bounce festival in this rabbit fantasy.
For weeks, joke-cracking Sky (a real punny bunny) has been practicing for Bright Burrow’s big Bounce-a-Lot festival. She practices hard in order to be selected as a Bouncer so she can participate instead of just watching. When she doesn’t make her class’s team, she’s beyond disappointed, disengaging from her jokes, friends, and activities she once enjoyed. The other bunnies try to cheer her up with various foods and attempt to persuade their teacher to let her on the team. What finally does the trick is surprising Sky with the role of commentator for the Bounce-a-Lot’s final event, allowing her verbal talents to lend her a measure of participation. The positive messages of the book, such as supportive friendships, are disturbingly undercut by the bunnies’ habit of complimenting one another through putting themselves down. The storyline is cluttered by numerous elements that are introduced but seem to have no payoff (or any real bearing on anything). The climax of the story, in which Sky decides to skip the festival, imperiling her yet-unknown commentator opportunity, introduces tension but is quickly resolved when she decides to attend after all, making it a moot moment. Boyd contributes grayscale cartoons (final art not seen). The series’ second outing, Petal’s Party, publishes simultaneously.
Readers should hop on past this series opener. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-58911-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
A quiet, comforting fable of identity and belonging.
Puppets yearn for greater things.
In a toy store, a lonely old sea captain named Spelhorst spies a puppet who reminds him of a lost love. He tries to buy her but is told he must purchase the full set—a king, a wolf, an owl, and a boy—as these puppets “are in a story.” The captain agrees, and that night, he mourns and writes a mysterious letter before dying in his sleep. Sold by the rag-and-bone man, the puppets eventually find their way to two sisters. While the older sister begins writing a play for the puppets, misadventures befall them; each engaging escapade is relevant to the story arc of the puppet in question. For instance, some of the wolf’s teeth are yanked out by the younger sister, and after the maid tosses the puppet out, a fox absconds with her—the first devastates the wolf, as her teeth were her pride, yet traveling through the wild woods fulfills her deepest wish. Gentle tension builds as the puppets wonder if they will be reunited. After exploring their desires and identities, the recovered puppets put on the older sister's play, a story that, though she couldn’t have known it, has beautiful symmetry with the puppets’ adventures. Theatrical language prevents the parallels from becoming too heavy-handed. The vaguely Victorian characters present white in charming drawings that set the mood.
A quiet, comforting fable of identity and belonging. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781536216752
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Gizmo is more droll than likable, but Wedgie is attractively steadfast and amiable, in the end rescuing both Gizmo and the...
When families get blended, so do their animals. Gizmo, a genius guinea pig who can read and wears eyeglasses, and Wedgie, a much less intelligent corgi who wears a superhero cape, each alternately relate their interwoven stories in distinct first-pet voices.
Unfortunately for the guinea pig, his owner, Elliot, is forced to let his new, annoying little sister, Jasmine, help take care of Gizmo. Jasmine enjoys dressing him up in tutus and housing him in Barbie’s lavish (pink) former abode. But Gizmo is an intrepid sort of critter with evil plans to rule the world, and he does find Barbie’s rucksack useful for carrying gear as he engages in some nighttime adventures, not all of them successful. Through comments Elliot makes, readers learn of his unhappiness with his new family situation, although this second storyline takes a back seat to Gizmo’s scheming. Acting as his and Elliot’s foil, Wedgie, who calls Gizmo “the Furry Potato,” is convincingly doglike in his eager embrace of just about everything. Fisinger’s numerous illustrations are action-packed and appropriately humorous, especially in their depiction of Wedgie’s never-ending enthusiasm. An opening gallery introduces Jasmine’s family as Latino and Elliot and his father as black. While the tale is never laugh-out-loud funny, it’s amusing and imaginative enough to sustain interest for readers new to chapter books.
Gizmo is more droll than likable, but Wedgie is attractively steadfast and amiable, in the end rescuing both Gizmo and the story. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-244763-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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