Can an insect shamus solve the case of the missing bat? Motham City is abuzz with the surprise success of its (usually pathetic) baseball team, the Stinkbugs, led by rookie Bugsy Goldwing. But disaster strikes when somebody steals Bugsy’s bat. Bugsy’s surrogate mother, Madame Damselfly, turns to Motham’s most famous gumshoe, Ace Lacewing. With sultry Gal Friday Xerces (a green-haired butterfly beauty), the hard-boiled Ace questions Bugsy’s fellow orphans–turned-rivals Big Mickey Mantis, Derek Skeeter, Fly Cobb et al., and even travels with the team for their final away game before the playoffs. After an attack on the Stinkbugs coach, Ace is able to unravel the mystery in time for the team to rally and win the game. Part mystery, part sports novel, part spoof, Biedrzycki’s sublime fable is also full of fun insect facts. His generous text, narrated by Ace in vintage Chandler fashion, may suit an older age group than his Photoshop illustrations, but both have appeal. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-57091-747-9
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
Bank on fun with this one—it’ll rope readers in.
That bad bunny Jack is back—and he’s gone out West!
Jack and the Lady arrive at the dude ranch for a three-day stay. Slim, the gold-toothed ranch hand, immediately takes a liking to the Lady. He calls her “ma’am” and kisses her hand, which makes Jack mad. That night, a bell sounds the alarm at the bank next to the ranch. The Lady goes to investigate only to find that Slim thwarted the theft but was unable to capture the bandit. A wanted poster reveals the bandit’s long ears and scowling eyes. Could it really be Jack? Barnett and Pizzoli are in apple-pie order in this Western for emerging readers. The laugh-out-loud mystery unfolds over six chapters, breathing humor into genre tropes. With a vocabulary of around 150 words and multiple sentences per page, the text is a bit more complex than earlier series entries. The creators’ successful subversion of moralistic primers will inevitably delight readers (though grown-ups may find the moral ambiguity unsettling). Jack at Bat, which publishes simultaneously, gives Jack a chance to settle the score between rival baseball teams—provided he can follow the rules of the game. The humans in Jack Goes West predominantly present white with the exception of the Law Lady, a woman of color, but those in Jack at Bat are diverse in skin tone. As with the other books in the series, each book ends with drawing instructions.
Bank on fun with this one—it’ll rope readers in. (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-11388-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched.
An amiable introduction to our thrifty, sociable, teeming insect cousins.
Bunting notes that all the ants on Earth weigh roughly the same as all the people and observes that ants (like, supposedly, us) love recycling, helping others, and taking “micronaps.” They, too, live in groups, and their “superpower” is an ability to work together to accomplish amazing things. Bunting goes on to describe different sorts of ants within the colony (“Drone. Male. Does no housework. Takes to the sky. Reproduces. Drops dead”), how they communicate using pheromones, and how they get from egg to adult. He concludes that we could learn a lot from them that would help us leave our planet in better shape than it was when we arrived. If he takes a pass on mentioning a few less positive shared traits (such as our tendency to wage war on one another), still, his comparisons do invite young readers to observe the natural world more closely and to reflect on our connections to it. In the simple illustrations, generic black ants look up at viewers with little googly eyes while scurrying about the pages gathering food, keeping nests clean, and carrying outsized burdens.
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567784
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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