These four neighbors are great company, and their portrayal of aging is sweetly refreshing. (Early reader. 6-9)
Show-and-Tell will never be the same after Mr. Putter and Tabby and Mrs. Teaberry and Zeke are through.
Fall for Mr. Putter and his cat, Tabby, means crisp air, crunchy leaves and apples. But this year, the ringing of the school bell arouses a longing in Mr. Putter for school days gone by—globes, pencils, erasers. Just then, their neighbor’s dog, Zeke, streaks through the yard wearing half a cake on his head and sparks one of Mr. Putter’s infamous ideas. With Mrs. Teaberry as his accomplice, the two neighbors are soon scheduled to appear at first grade show-and-tell with their pets and their pet tricks…only Tabby and Zeke are not well known for any tricks. And by the end of the big day, the only trick they have done is a disappearing one: Zeke demolishes the class cupcakes, and then both skedaddle. Still, Mr. Putter gets to enjoy the school smells and sights and, especially, the children. And both he and Mrs. Teaberry enjoy laughing at the worst show-and-tell ever. Howard’s pencil, watercolor and gouache illustrations charmingly convey Mr. Putter’s longings, the mischievousness of his plan and his delight in being back in school. Rylant’s ever-fresh text will gracefully coax emergent readers into independence.
These four neighbors are great company, and their portrayal of aging is sweetly refreshing. (Early reader. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-15-205071-9
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent.
Published in magazines, never seen since / Now resurrected for pleasure intense / Versified episodes numbering four / Featuring Marco, and Horton and more!
All of the entries in this follow-up to The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories (2011) involve a certain amount of sharp dealing. Horton carries a Kwuggerbug through crocodile-infested waters and up a steep mountain because “a deal is a deal”—and then is cheated out of his promised share of delicious Beezlenuts. Officer Pat heads off escalating, imagined disasters on Mulberry Street by clubbing a pesky gnat. Marco (originally met on that same Mulberry Street) concocts a baroque excuse for being late to school. In the closer, a smooth-talking Grinch (not the green sort) sells a gullible Hoobub a piece of string. In a lively introduction, uber-fan Charles D. Cohen (The Seuss, The Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 2002) provides publishing histories, places characters and settings in Seussian context, and offers insights into, for instance, the origin of “Grinch.” Along with predictably engaging wordplay—“He climbed. He grew dizzy. His ankles grew numb. / But he climbed and he climbed and he clum and he clum”—each tale features bright, crisply reproduced renditions of its original illustrations. Except for “The Hoobub and the Grinch,” which has been jammed into a single spread, the verses and pictures are laid out in spacious, visually appealing ways.
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-38298-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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