This is one of the very best of Rylant's Putter-Tabby dyad, as always affectionately depicted by the master of droll illustration. Mr. Putter decides to buy some fish to have at home. They remind him of his childhood. Tabby likes fish too. They "made her whiskers tingle and her tail twitch." And how: "Mr. Putter and Tabby drove their fish home. Tabby nearly twitched herself out of the car." Once they are home and the fish safely in their bowl, Tabby's whiskers chill and her tail quietens, but her paw swings into action. "Bat. Bat. Bat. Bat." It goes against the glass bowl. She can't control herself. By the time evening rolls around, Tabby is so frazzled it looks like she will have to enter a treatment program. So Mr. Putter drapes a pillowcase over the fishbowl. In the morning Tabby is found under the pillowcase and hard at batting the bowl. Mr. Putter is reduced to putting a metal pail over the bowl. A few days of that sad arrangement and they decide to give the fish to their neighbor Mrs. Teaberry. Like great farce, Rylant has chosen every word impeccably and Howard has drawn Tabby to a T, tingling whiskers, wayward paw, and all. Readers young and old will laugh themselves silly. (Easy reader. 4-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-202408-5
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Handsomely illustrated with cut-paper art by Wisniewski (The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups, 1998, etc.), this homage to tools from Clements (Frindle, 1996, etc.) conveys a sense of their beauty and mystery. The making of an old-fashioned carousel is the never-mentioned, ever-present event as a baker’s dozen of tools—ruler, saw, grinder, screwdriver, wrench, etc.—and the toolbox are introduced in a few lines each, one to each spread. The clipped text evokes not just the attributes of the tool—that the wrench wrestles with its work, that the axe finds the board that hides in the log—but a hint, if fanciful, of their character: drills are patient, rulers know, knives are edgy, the toolbox remembers. The text is occasionally staccato (“Toolbox carries tools home. Workshop is home”) but mostly has a good poetic pulse. The illustrations are pure entertainment, slowly revealing that the workmen and apprentice are using their fine old tools to put together a turn-of-the-century carousel. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-85579-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
For the same audience that took to Peter S°s’s Fire Truck (1998), a spirited little educational fantasy from Rex (The Painting Gorilla, 1997). In a very young voice, a small boy describes his work as a firefighter. He covers equipment and tactics in crisp, no-nonsense sentences: “I jump into the Pumper Engine and we’re off. The siren blares to let people know we are coming. The Aerial Ladder Truck is right behind us. We drive quickly, but very safely.” For so staccato a beat, the text is surprisingly soothing and quite authentically ingenuous. Softening the litany of fire-fighting facts (“The engine carries 750 gallons of water. That’s equal to 25 full bathtubs”) is a modest episode of heroism in which a pet snake is rescued from the flames—all in a day’s work. Adding an overall note of warmth in vivid red, yellow, and blue are Rex’s colored-pencil illustrations, a medium that here is unrivaled in its welcoming and immediate appeal. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-5391-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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