A mother teaches her daughter a lesson in persuasion in this Halloween take on “The Old Woman and Her Pig.” Unfortunately, the tale bites off more than it can chew. When Tegan, the witch’s daughter, comes home from fetching water, she finds a fierce warthog blocking her gate. Spells are unsuccessful at getting him to move: “Match, match burn stick. Stick, stick beat dog. Dog, dog bite warthog. . . . ” On an old man’s advice, she tries a new tactic: Speak politely, trust and put heart in your smile. This works, not only on the warthog, but also on a rock, a horse and the old man himself. In what seems to be a tacked-on ending, readers will find out that Tegan’s mother needed the warthog’s tail for a spell to save Halloween and that the old man is really her mother. The brilliantly colored illustrations are filled with harbingers of fall. One, however, sticks out like a sore thumb. When the original spell finally works for the duo, the accompanying picture is reminiscent of a Mexican Day-of-the-Dead painting. Fails to be either a Halloween tale or a moral lesson, and the final trick is hardly worth it. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-50781-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walter Lorraine/Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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