Though the cover depicts a closer alliance than the story ever quite achieves, this take on compromise provides fuel for thought. When neatnik bunny Wally advertises an upstairs apartment for rent, Mae, a huge bear, shoves her way into the house, turns her room into a pigsty and cheerfully gobbles up Wally’s carrot cakes. When Mae invites her many brothers over for a wild party a frustrated Wally at last tries to put his slipper-clad foot down—but instead is swept up in the dancing until he collapses. Tenderly put to bed by his tenant from hell, the next day Wally realizes that he had fun and hops upstairs to push Mae into cleaning up her act a bit. Genial Mae and sibs are appealingly shaggy, massive presences in Weldin’s cleanly drawn scenes, and along with the humor inherent in the characters’ size differential, young readers will appreciate how the lay of Wally’s long ears so clearly telegraphs his ups and downs. The friction disappears a little too easily, but this isn’t exactly The Odd Couple. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7358-2208-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
With wordplay reminiscent of Margie Palatini at her best, Helakoski takes four timorous chickens into, then out of, the literal and figurative woods. Fleeing the henhouse after catching sight of a wolf, the pusillanimous pullets come to a deep ditch: “ ‘What if we can’t jump that far?’ ‘What if we fall in the ditch?’ ‘What if we get sucked into the mud?’ The chickens tutted, putted, and flutted. They butted into themselves and each other, until one by one . . . ” they do fall in. But then they pick themselves up and struggle out. Ensuing encounters with cows and a lake furnish similar responses and outcomes; ultimately they tumble into the wolf’s very cave, where they “picked, pecked, and pocked. They ruffled, puffled, and shuffled. They shrieked, squeaked, and freaked, until . . . ” their nemesis scampers away in panic. Fluttering about in pop-eyed terror, the portly, partly clothed hens make comical figures in Cole’s sunny cartoons (as does the flummoxed wolf)—but the genuine triumph in their final strut—“ ‘I am a big, brave chicken,’ said one chicken. ‘Ohh . . . ’ said the others. ‘Me too.’ ‘Me three.’ ‘Me four’ ”—brings this tribute to chicken power to a rousing close. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-47575-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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