An unconscionably tardy return for the young imagineer of the incomparable Adele’s Album (1988)—welcome back! (Graphic early...
A bucket, a small shovel, and an unfettered imagination are all it takes to transform a visit to a sandbox in a crowded public park into a brilliant adventure.
All young Adele needs to do is give her bucket a tap. The sand inside crawls out on its own to dance, buildings and parent-bearing benches in the background float out of the frame, and nearby toys and trees acquire smiling faces. Then down a Sand Dragon’s gaping maw tumble Adele and her newly animate companions to meet a tantrum-prone king, fly beneath a cloud of fluffy chicks, perch in a hot dog tree, and land on “a DESSERT island.” “Yummy! Eat up now,” says Adele gaily. “Who KNOWS what will happen next.” Indeed. Ponti slips in Sendak-ian caricatures and other sight gags as he propels his white child and her motley crew of tiny fellow travelers on. (All, except for an anxious toy aptly named Stuffy, are clearly having a grand time.) They proceed through a series of suddenly transformed settings to a final slide down a giant’s tongue that delivers Adele and all back to the sandbox. Readers, particularly the newly independent ones at whom this is aimed, will delightedly join the outing.
An unconscionably tardy return for the young imagineer of the incomparable Adele’s Album (1988)—welcome back! (Graphic early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943145-16-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Young Otto loves orange so much that when a sly genie rises up out of an old lamp he receives from Aunt Sally Lee, he uses his one wish to turn all the world that color. His ensuing bliss changes to blues, though, after he gets a gander at his orange lunch and then sees what happens on the street when every traffic light is the same color. Cammuso illustrates comics veteran Lynch’s tale in neatly drawn sequential panels, casting Otto as a cat (marmalade, of course) in human dress and pairing him with a blue, distinctly Disneyesque genie. Discovering that said genie hasn’t eaten in 880 years, Otto cleverly calls on the persuasive power of pizza to reverse the wish, and by the end all’s well. Low on violence and high on production values, this comics-format “Toon Book” will leave emergent readers wishing for more. (Early reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: June 9, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9799238-2-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: RAW Junior/TOON Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another outing positively radiant with child appeal, featuring a pair of close siblings with complementary personalities.
It’s bedtime for the mouseling brother and sister—but not before plenty of horsing around and a deliciously scary expedition into the backyard.
As little Penny quietly tries to wash up and pretend-read a story (“One day the princess was sent to her room for being bratty. But she had a secret door…”), her restless big brother interrupts obnoxiously with warnings about the Boogey Mouse, loud belches and other distractions. When Benny realizes that he’s left his prized pirate hat in the backyard, though, Penny braves the Boogey Mouse to follow him out of the window and prod him into reclaiming it from the spooky, dark playhouse. She also “reads” him to sleep after the two race, giggling at their fright, back indoors. Framed in sequential panels that occasionally expand to full-page or double-spread scenes, the art features a pair of big-eared, bright-eyed mites (plus the occasional fictive dinosaur) in cozy domestic settings atmospherically illuminated by the glow of lamps, Benny’s flashlight and the moon. As in this popular series’ earlier episodes, dialogue in unobtrusive balloons furnishes the only text, but the action is easy to follow, and Hayes provides plenty of finely drawn visual cues to the characters’ feelings.
Another outing positively radiant with child appeal, featuring a pair of close siblings with complementary personalities. (Graphic early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-935179-20-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: TOON/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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