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SEE PIP POINT

Name: SEE PIP POINT
Author: David Milgrim
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2

From the Adventures of Otto series

by David Milgrim & illustrated by David Milgrim ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2003

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In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)

Pub Date: March 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-689-85116-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
GO, OTTO, GO!
by David Milgrim ; illustrated by David Milgrim

- BOOK REVIEW
SEE SANTA NAP
by David Milgrim & illustrated by David Milgrim

- BOOK REVIEW
SWING OTTO SWING!
by David Milgrim & illustrated by David Milgrim

- BOOK REVIEW
SEE BIP GROW!
by David Milgrim ; illustrated by David Milgrim

- BOOK REVIEW
GO, OTTO, GO!
by David Milgrim ; illustrated by David Milgrim

- BOOK REVIEW
WILD FEELINGS
by David Milgrim ; illustrated by David Milgrim

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RABBIT AND TURTLE GO TO SCHOOL

by Lucy Floyd & illustrated by Christopher Denise ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2000

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Floyd and Denise update “The Tortoise and the Hare” for primary readers, captioning each soft-focus, semi-rural scene with a short, simple sentence or two. Rabbit proposes running to school, while his friend Turtle takes the bus: no contest at first, as the bus makes stop after deliberate stop, but because Rabbit pauses at a pushcart for a snack, a fresh-looking Turtle greets his panting, disheveled friend on the school steps. There is no explicit moral, but children will get the point—and go on to enjoy Margery Cuyler’s longer and wilder Road Signs: A Harey Race with a Tortoise (p. 957). (Easy reader. 5-7)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-15-202679-7

Page Count: 20

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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NOT A BOX

by Antoinette Portis & illustrated by Antoinette Portis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2006

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Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)