Anyone familiar with gangster tropes should find this book terrific fun. As for young readers? Fuhgeddaboudit.
An owl restaurateur gets some unexpected competition from a double-crossing colleague.
Owl Capone—“the nicest owl in the history of owls”—runs Capone’s, a popular vegetarian wrap restaurant in the Windy Forest. For years he has employed a rat named Gus, whom he considers “famiglia”; Owl has also given jobs to members of Gus’ family. (Capisce?) But one day, right across the street, that dirty rat opens Gus’s Joint, where he has the nerve to serve a special sauce made with Owl’s family recipe. “I’ve been planning this for months, Owl,” admits Gus. “You were just too nice to see it. Kindness has made you weak.” Ewers, making her literary debut here, peppers the story with allusions to The Godfather, which readers will gobble up…presuming they’re adults, the age group for which this book seems to have been written. Are young children (versus, say, their parents) really concerned that kindness can be misconstrued as weakness? What kid knows the meaning of watering hole, a term used in the story but that somehow didn’t make it into the book’s glossary, which includes such phrases as “stabbed in the back” and “an offer he couldn’t refuse”? The resolution to Owl’s crisis is unremarkable, but Sayegh’s digital collage art, which features an all-animal cast dressed like players in a golden-age gangster movie, sure is swell.
Anyone familiar with gangster tropes should find this book terrific fun. As for young readers? Fuhgeddaboudit. (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2026
ISBN: 9798217042326
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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