Jacques and Missy make good travel companions, and the sights in Costa Rica are lovely, but making it through the app can...
Friends Jacques and Missy, a cat and a mouse respectively, find adventure when Missy loses her red scarf in the air, forcing them to land their yellow prop plane in Costa Rica.
From here, the story branches in a few directions, allowing the pair to explore a pond, a volcano, a jungle where sloths live and other parts of a national park. Games and challenges emerge to move the story along—not all are easy, however, and they must be solved in order to continue the story. Even more frustrating is that there’s no way to turn pages. Readers must instead look for clues in the text or a small flash on the screen to figure out where to tap to move ahead. Sometimes that can trigger unnecessary and annoying backtracking. A small blue tab that offers options disappears unless readers remember where to tap. There, readers find options to mute sounds and elicit labels and facts (written in three ascending levels of difficulty), as well as a seek-and-find challenge and a world map. The app offers no spoken narration, but there are plenty of opportunities for parents to read along with kids and to share new words and facts.
Jacques and Missy make good travel companions, and the sights in Costa Rica are lovely, but making it through the app can sometimes feel less like a vacation and more like homework. (Requires iOS 7 and above.) (iPad storybook app. 5-9)Pub Date: June 24, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: d?books interactive
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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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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