Gassy dogs may be funny, but poking fun at disabilities never is. Stinker indeed.
A boisterous, black-and-white dog has two problems: an excess of flatulence and a lack of a permanent home.
The dog is named Stinker, naturally, and his story is narrated in first person by a smart-aleck, marmalade cat who happens to be around for all the action (though without an explanation for its presence). The cat explains that Stinker’s first owner didn’t like “smelling his little smells.” She left Stinker at an animal shelter, where he was considered for adoption by several families and individuals, including people of color and a boy using a wheelchair. All of them reject the dog because of his gas problem. Stinker eventually finds a cozy home with a lonely, older man. Bright, busy illustrations in mixed media provide energetic personalities for the two animals, with scribbly, gray clouds of gas trailing after Stinker. The unexceptional story is not particularly funny, and the description of the older, white man, Mr. Curtis, is seriously flawed in its treatment of the man’s impaired sight and hearing. Mr. Curtis is “as old as the hills,” “can’t see worth a hill of beans,” and “cannot hear worth a hoot.” His sense of smell is still acute, so he locates Stinker by the dog’s gaseous smell. The condescending attitude toward the man’s age and disabilities represents an inappropriate and outdated use of advanced years and impairment as the butt of jokes.
Gassy dogs may be funny, but poking fun at disabilities never is. Stinker indeed. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5124-1792-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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