Perhaps best for young crafting enthusiasts searching for a quiet, gentle read—but even they may be underwhelmed.
The third in the Crafty Cat series finds elementary schooler Birdie competing for a choice role in the class play.
When the story begins, readers find Birdie’s alter ego, Crafty Cat, putting the finishing touches on a project: a small model of her human form with butterfly wings. Even after transforming back into Birdie, she’s sure her creativity will convince her teacher she’s right for the highly coveted role of the butterfly in her class play. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy: Class bully Anya has come prepared with store-bought, full-sized wings, as have the majority of their classmates. When their teacher asks the classmates to consider other roles, only Anya and Birdie refuse to budge, forcing their teacher to assign parts: Anya as the butterfly and Birdie as the caterpillar. When Anya has a costume snafu, however, Birdie uses her crafting skills to save the day and learn a lesson: “crafting beats clapping.” Readers new to the series may wonder how Birdie’s secret identity works: Does she actually turn into a cat, or is it just her imagination? Why is her crafting alter ego a cat? The low-stakes, lesson-heavy plot feels more like an episode of a preschool TV show than a typical graphic novel, especially with a narrator (delineated with a text box with a pastel mint background) who directly addresses the protagonist: “What a secret, Crafty Cat. Thank you for sharing. Now it’s time for your transformation.” Characters are all paper-white.
Perhaps best for young crafting enthusiasts searching for a quiet, gentle read—but even they may be underwhelmed. (Graphic fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62672-487-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
A crowd pleaser in an otherwise crowded oeuvre.
The ubiquitous rodent journalist returns in a new iteration.
Geronimo Stilton, publisher extraordinaire of the Rodent’s Gazette, has a new story to investigate: New Mouse City is plagued by a deeply malodorous stink. As the stench intensifies, the residents flee, selling their homes. Stilton, flanked by his banana-loving friend Hercule Poirat, forays into the sewers to locate the fount of the funk. There, the duo encounters rat queen Trashfur Sparkles XIII and her Grand Council. Trashfur, the mastermind behind the nefariously noxious plan, has set her sights on wedding Hercule and marrying Geronimo off to one of her council members; how will Geronimo escape this time? This new graphic-novel series published by Graphix/Scholastic (not to be confused with Papercutz’s ongoing Geronimo Stilton, Reporter graphic-novel series) and illustrated by Angleberger (of Origami Yoda fame) utilizes a decidedly more cartoonish style than the Papercutz version, more along the Dav Pilkey aesthetic. Funny and fast-paced, this offering is infused with a generous amount of over-the-top silliness, with occasional breaks to explain jokes to readers (explaining that gorgonzola is a type of cheese, for example). With easy-to-read and varied typefaces and oversized, full-color panels, this should effortlessly appeal to the younger set, making it an obvious choice for those deciding what to read next after Dog Man.
A crowd pleaser in an otherwise crowded oeuvre. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-58730-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Piles of excitement.
Gifted young gamers team up to thwart an interstellar prankster’s scheme to blast humanity into oblivion with toxic gas from Uranus, the smelliest planet anywhere.
Uh-oh…it seems that evil Baron Buttz is planning something involving Poopious Maximus, a giant mound of “fake dog doody,” and a Mega Whopper Whoopee Cushion. Down swoops Newton Bean, commander of the Superpixel Ninja Officer Tweens of Space, to recruit Rusty Crumb, a human gamer with awesomely overdeveloped “thumbceps,” and his fierce little sister, Kitty, to help get to the bottom of what’s going on. The stage is set for boss battles and actual ones, with the two gamers firing up their Super Game Dude consoles to tackle swarming hordes of Buttz bots and the sneering Prince of Pranks in both real and cyber space. Distinguishing between the two realms by using smooth or pixelated lines (but drawing them in much the same way), Mansch packs his cartoon panels with real and virtual space action and rapid patter on the way to a fart of interplanetary proportions that blasts the scheming schemer to a proper comeuppance—or, as one minion gleefully puts it, “Buttz is on Uranus! Hahaha!” Bean has light brown skin; his nemesis and the rest of the button-eyed human cast present as white.
Piles of excitement. (Graphic science fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781513141527
Page Count: 224
Publisher: West Margin Press
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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