The surprise of caring for a strange animal is jovially chronicled in this sweet intergenerational offering. On a dark and stormy evening, a featherless chicken appears on Jamie and Grandfather’s doorstep. They invite the bird in and warm him before the fire (drawn by Jarrett in waxy crayon comfort). They name him Thomas—a name inspired by Jamie’s train set—and tuck him in him for the night in a pair of Jamie’s old jumpers. The next day they bring Thomas to the vet, in an office filled with vats and jars enough to resemble an alchemist’s, and then on to the feed store, with its overflowing shelves and bags of seed—all conveying a sense of rural plenitude and the wisdom of the ages. Thomas is full of beans—getting in the butter, leaving droppings everywhere, sitting on Grandfather’s head in the middle of the night—so he is built his own caravan to live in. The next time Jamie returns to visit with Grandfather, Thomas has sprouted a fine set of feathers and—surprise—laid an egg. “We’ll just have to call him Thomasina then,” says Grandfather. A particularly affectionate tale, full of tenderness and caring for its quaintly absurd bird and her caregivers. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-00-198414-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins UK/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fun enough once through, but not much more.
A pint-sized sleuth tracks a purple underground monster.
When Mom scrapes the family's uneaten spaghetti into the sink, young Sammy Sanders hears strange slurping sounds. He becomes "77 percent convinced" that a spaghetti-slurping serpent lives in his sewer, and can't get to sleep. The next morning, Sammy and his little sister Sally investigate. There are meatballs and strands of limp spaghetti around the manhole cover! Sammy, whose round glasses make the whites of his eyes look as enormous as an owl's, can barely contain his excitement. After he removes the cover, Sally slips on some sauce and lands in the sewer, becoming a smelly sludgy mess. Sammy's left to investigate alone and comes up with a brilliant idea. Late that night, he sneaks out of the house with a salty snack for himself and a bowl of spaghetti for the serpent. But he falls asleep, and the huge serpent slithers up to the scrumptious spaghetti. Slurping sounds startle Sammy awake; he's face-to-face with the monster. There's just one thing to do: Share! Sammy' salty snack earns him a friend for life. And that night, he sleeps soundly, 100% sure that there's a serpent in his sewer. Zenz's illustrations, in Prismacolor colored pencil, look generic, but Ripes' yarn has pace and phonetic crackle.
Fun enough once through, but not much more. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7614-6101-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
Skip it
This book wants to be feminist.
Princess Penelope Pineapple, illustrated as a white girl with dark hair and eyes, is the Amelia Bloomer of the Pineapple Kingdom. She has dresses, but she prefers to wear pants as she engages in myriad activities ranging from yoga to gardening, from piloting a plane to hosting a science fair. When it’s time for the Pineapple Ball, she imagines wearing a sparkly pants outfit, but she worries about Grand Lady Busyboots’ disapproval: “ ‘Pants have no place on a lady!’ she’d say. / ‘That’s how it has been, and that’s how it shall stay.’ ” In a moment of seeming dissonance between the text and art, Penny seems to resolve to wear pants, but then she shows up to the ball in a gown. This apparent contradiction is resolved when the family cat, Miss Fussywiggles, falls from the castle into the moat and Princess Penelope saves her—after stripping off her gown to reveal pink, flowered swimming trunks and a matching top. Impressed, Grand Lady Busyboots resolves that princesses can henceforth wear whatever they wish. While seeing a princess as savior rather than damsel in distress may still seem novel, it seems a stretch to cast pants-wearing as a broadly contested contemporary American feminist issue. Guthrie and Oppenheim’s unimaginative, singsong rhyme is matched in subtlety by Byrne’s bright illustrations.
Skip it . (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2603-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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