In this quirky Australian import, young George lives with his grandmother “and an empty place where his mother and father should have been.” Every Friday he visits the animal shelter, and he’s drawn to the dark cage at the end, where animals due for euthanasia are kept. There he finds a scruffy, three-legged dog living out his last day. George’s sensitive grandmother recognizes the desperate needs of boy and dog and helps to adopt the winsome Jeremy. A sudden infusion of color into the previously drab computer-drawn illustrations graphically demonstrates the happiness all three share. George and his grandmother now get to work to create the perfect artificial leg for Jeremy, and with success (a leg with a wheel for park visits) comes bliss. Text, a sentence to a paragraph per spread, is relatively brief, but the combination of facial expressions and interesting perspectives perfectly captures the mood. Some children (and adults!) may find Jeremy’s disability and unhappy future at the animal shelter disturbing, but the splendid conclusion makes this tale a joy. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-933605-90-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2008
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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