Kids may want to have jumping contests of their own after reading this—just omit jetpacks.
A trickster jumps on a sneaky scheme to best all others in a contest.
Fox isn’t much of a jumper—amusingly illustrated in the frontmatter—but this doesn’t stop him from aiming to win first prize in competition. Instead of practicing rigorously, he dons a self-built jetpack to give him an extra boost. Other contestants gamely try, some faring better than others, and naturally, Rabbit effortlessly jumps highest. Thanks to his device, Fox leaps to extraordinary heights and is soon way out of bounds and out of sight, soaring into space. Unable to wait for Fox’s return, the judges begin the awards ceremony. As Rabbit ascends to first place, who should fall into the trophy cup? Why, Fox, who, astute readers will have noted, has been hurtling back toward Earth all the while and lands just in time to win—or does he? The text is drily witty, and the comical illustrations, rendered in pencils, watercolors, and ink and assembled digitally, are energetic and appealing, Children will enjoy seeing Rabbit and Fox tussle over the trophy and should appreciate the story’s funny outcome, representing a compromise of sorts. Animal competitors represent various species, and, in a nice touch, all (except Fox and Rabbit) demonstrate good self-esteem, fair play, and sportsmanship.
Kids may want to have jumping contests of their own after reading this—just omit jetpacks. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-239874-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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