An unabashedly silly, madcap caper.
Following On the Loose in London! (2026), canine siblings Betsy and Bones are traveling again, this time to the City of Light.
The pair couldn’t be more different: Bones accidentally flies to Paris, Texas, before making it to France; Betsy arrives with a minute-by-minute itinerary, starting with a trip to the Louvre. The naïve duo get to the museum just in time to help a mysterious stranger in a dark coat remove the Mona Lisa “to wash it!” Turns out that stranger was “scoundrel, international crepe expert, and art thief…the Fox!” By accidentally assisting him, the siblings end up in Inspector Fronch’s crosshairs. Betsy squeezes in tidbits of trivia about the various sites they stop by on their zany run through Paris (“Did you know that the Seine is the second longest river in France and—” “Not now, Bets”) as they evade Fronch and pursue the Fox to clear their name. The breezy story is mainly a vehicle to carry the characters from joke to joke: Bones offends a shopkeeper by slathering ketchup on a crepe; the siblings pose as mimes to avoid the inspector. The nonstop humor capitalizes on the comic format for visual gags, rewarding readers with laughs at almost every page turn. Two-tone illustrations place cartoonish images of the characters against edited photos of Paris.
An unabashedly silly, madcap caper. (Early reader. 5-9)Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9781665980630
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Simon Spotlight
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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BOOK REVIEW
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