A wild tale helmed by a charmingly clever kid.
Child heroine Lucy Lick-Me-Not is back, and this time, she’s taking on the seasons and the lack of a white Christmas.
It’s late December, and Lucy Lick-Me-Not is not happy. It’s too warm to be Christmas! There’s nary a snowflake in sight, her mother refuses to drink eggnog, and her father decides not to light a fire in the fireplace. What’s a kid to do? One day, Lucy Lick-Me-Not hears a voice coming from a tree. She is, of course, wary—she knows some monsters would love to gobble her up—but when she opens up the door to the tree, she finds Jack Frost. He explains that he’s been trapped in the tree by the Greedy Gubbin Queen, who won’t let him start winter. The queen instead wants her Gubbins to live and prosper. Using a lesson she learned in school, Lucy Lick-Me-Not fools the green-loving Gubbins and convinces them to head to Greenland, which, ice-covered as it is, isn’t all that green. This gives Jack Frost the opportunity he needs to chill down December, and a white Christmas is indeed had by all. Carmel (Lucy Lick-Me-Not and the Day Eaters: A Birthday Story, 2014) has done it again. The second installment of the series is just as wildly imaginative and fun as the first. Carmel has her formula—a frothy fantasy with a touch of smarts—down pat. Educational lessons dot the lyrical prose, as in the beginning of the book, when Carmel explains why there are seasons to begin with: i.e., the Earth’s rotation bringing different parts of the Earth closer to the sun and all that. Elsewhere, Carmel explains that spring is for planting, fall is for harvesting, etc. Burkmar’s vivid, colorful illustrations are the cherry on top of a lovely sundae that children and adults alike will reach for time and again.
A wild tale helmed by a charmingly clever kid.Pub Date: July 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9906248-0-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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