After a storm floods their school, a group of racially diverse children is left with no books.
Rather than stressing about the empty bookshelves, the teacher, a brown-skinned Latina, invites her students to use their imaginations as she tells rather than reads a story. The children become inspired to share and then write down their own flights of fancy. “Once upon a time a girl named Alexis found a piñata filled with magic candies”; “Mrs. Martínez’s lawn mower broke. So she bought three goats to eat up her grass!” Unfortunately, these simplistic, one-sentence, plotless forays into creative exploration belie the resulting multipage books that the children create, filling the shelves at day’s end. Martin’s watercolor-and-ink illustrations richly convey the dreamscape quality of the fantasies springing forth from each child. Conversely, the children’s ubiquitous open-mouthed expressions lend them a simple-minded air, dragging down the artist’s overall effort. Bertrand’s commendable message—that the story resides within—is derailed by the uneven art and the slight, didactic narrative that, like the children’s efforts, suffers from too little plot.
This fully bilingual title is marginal at best—not recommended. (Bilingual picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: May 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55885-826-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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Hank Zipzer, poster boy for dyslexic middle graders everywhere, stars in a new prequel series highlighting second-grade trials and triumphs.
Hank’s hopes of playing Aqua Fly, a comic-book character, in the upcoming class play founder when, despite plenty of coaching and preparation, he freezes up during tryouts. He is not particularly comforted when his sympathetic teacher adds a nonspeaking role as a bookmark to the play just for him. Following the pattern laid down in his previous appearances as an older child, he gets plenty of help and support from understanding friends (including Ashley Wong, a new apartment-house neighbor). He even manages to turn lemons into lemonade with a quick bit of improv when Nick “the Tick” McKelty, the sneering classmate who took his preferred role, blanks on his lines during the performance. As the aforementioned bully not only chokes in the clutch and gets a demeaning nickname, but is fat, boastful and eats like a pig, the authors’ sensitivity is rather one-sided. Still, Hank has a winning way of bouncing back from adversity, and like the frequent black-and-white line-and-wash drawings, the typeface is designed with easy legibility in mind.
An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-448-48239-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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