A brilliant, original, infinitely rereadable book that can sit alongside Sendak and Dahl.
A young black girl tells her little sister that the breakfast before them reminds her of the worst breakfast, but her sister has no recollection of that terrible meal.
Incredulous, the girl tells her sister all about the most disgusting of breakfasts, though this still doesn't ring a bell. So she spins a larger and larger tale, each piece of food more awful than the last. Miéville and Smith's dialogue is fantastic: witty, smart, with great rhythm that doesn't sacrifice artful turns of phrase to reach for an internal rhyme. "It gummed my throat and chilled my soul. Too much cheese. Not enough hole," the girl says of some inferior Swiss cheese. Smith's artwork keeps pace with the text, which the artist sets into little rectangles to contrast with the jaggedly flamboyant paintings that get increasingly manic as the girl goes on, incorporating tentacles and pterodactyls as well as piled-high foodstuffs. Both Miéville and Smith are well-known for their work for adults, and this will certainly appeal to their fans who are parents. But this should be in the hands of all kids who aren’t easily satiated by tamer picture books and who would engage with a real work of art that they can revisit over and over. None of the artwork is too gross to behold, even for the squeamish, but it does perfectly illustrate the culinary horrors the girl is trying to convey to her sister.
A brilliant, original, infinitely rereadable book that can sit alongside Sendak and Dahl. (Picture book. 3 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61775-486-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Black Sheep/Akashic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren.
In talk-show host Fallon and illustrator Ordóñez’s latest picture-book collaboration, an elderly pooch waxes rhapsodic about a life well lived.
Observing Papa sitting in his chair watching TV all day, a young pup says, “I’m starting to think…you don’t do ANYTHING.” So Papa proceeds to list his accomplishments, both big and small, mundane and profound. Some are just a result of being older and physically bigger (being tall enough to reach a high shelf and strong enough to open jars); others include winning a race and performing in a band when he was younger. Eventually, the pup realizes that while Papa may have slowed down in his old age, he’s led a full life. The most satisfying thing about Papa’s life now? Watching his grandchild take center stage: “I can say lots of thoughts / but I choose to be quiet. / I’d rather you discover things and then try it.” Fallon’s straightforward text is sweetly upbeat, though it occasionally lacks flow, forcing incongruous situations together to fit the rhyme scheme (“I cook and I mow, / and I once flew a plane. // I play newspaper puzzles because it’s good for my brain”). Featuring uncluttered, colorful backgrounds, Ordóñez’s child-friendly digital art at times takes on sepia tones, evoking the sense of looking back at old photos or memories. Though the creators tread familiar ground, the love between Papa and his little one is palpable.
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781250393975
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style.
A summer vacation turns out to be anything but relaxing for Greg and a teeming horde of Heffleys.
Gramma declines the offer of a grand birthday celebration, saying that “what would make her REALLY happy is if everyone else went to Ruttyneck Island”—though she prepares individual packs of her legendary meatballs. (“You knew exactly how much Gramma likes you by how many meatballs you got.”) A gaggle of Heffley relatives and a dog stuff themselves into a small beach house, where overcrowding, personality conflicts, and simmering resentments become just some of the ingredients in a rolling boil of sitcom-style catastrophes, not to mention questionable decisions ranging from leaving the kids to make dinner unsupervised to labeling a cooler “HUMAN ORGANS” to keep random passersby from helping themselves. As usual, Greg supplies the setups in poker-faced journal entries interspersed with black-and-white drawings of slouched figures bearing frowny expressions of dismay or annoyance to cue the laffs. Gramma, it eventually turns out, not only (unsurprisingly) has plans of her own, but is also keeping a shocking secret about those meatballs. To go with the knee-slapping set pieces, Kinney slips in a tasty bit of family lore about how Greg’s parents met, plus droll takes on such low-hanging comedy fruit as restaurant manners, viciously competitive board games, and social media influencers (Greg being one, albeit with zero followers, and his Aunt Veronica’s little dog being another, with 3.8 million).
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781419766954
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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