Good grief! (Picture book. 4-8)
The Peanuts gang explains the origins of the American Revolution—kinda.
This is such an egregious appropriation of a global institution that it is hard to know where to begin. How about the cover? “I Declare, Charlie Brown! Charles M. Schulz.” That’s it. As Schulz died in 2000, readers can safely assume this is not his story and these are not his drawings, and the record is corrected on the title page. Briefly, the Peanuts gang builds a treehouse, which Lucy quickly occupies and demands a tax to enter. Forget that this is not a tax but an admission fee—this allows Reeves and Barnes to introduce taxation without representation and the impetus for the American Revolution (which gets stone-skipping detail in the backmatter). The text is painfully wooden: “They settled some of the very first colonies in America. By the mid-1770s, thirteen colonies were thriving.” Unlike George III (and, for that matter, Schulz’s Lucy), Reeves and Barnes’ Lucy sees the light and joins the gang for a tea party. Brannon’s digital artwork has a wobbly, mouse-drawn look, giving the characters a sickly look. To add insult to injury, the text doesn’t always match the illustrations. “ ‘Lucy is coming! Lucy is coming!’ Pigpen sounded the alarm.” As it happens, Pigpen is nowhere to be found.
Good grief! (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62157-334-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Patriot Press
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Fast and furious action guaranteed to keep new readers laughing and turning pages.
Never underestimate the chaotic fun that magic and an angry bouncing ball can create.
When Frog goes to the library, he borrows a book on magic. He then heads to a nearby park to read up on the skills necessary to becoming “a great magician.” Suddenly, a deflated yellow ball lands with a “Thud!” at his feet. Although he flexes his new magician muscles, Frog’s spells fall as flat as the ball. But when Frog shouts “Phooey!” and kicks the ball away, it inflates to become a big, angry ball. The ball begins to chase Frog, so he seeks shelter in the library—and Frog and ball turn the library’s usual calm into chaos. The cartoon chase crescendos. The ball bounces into the middle of a game of chess, interrupts a puppet show, and crashes into walls and bookcases. Staying just one bounce ahead, Frog runs, hides, grabs a ride on a book cart, and scatters books and papers as he slides across the library furniture before an alligator patron catches the ball and kicks it out the library door. But that’s not the end of the ball….Caple’s tidy panels and pastel-hued cartoons make a surprisingly effective setting for the slapstick, which should have young readers giggling. Simple sentences—often just subject and verb—with lots of repetition propel the action. Frog’s nonsense-word spells (“Poof Wiffle, Bop Bip!”) are both funny and excellent practice in phonetics. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Fast and furious action guaranteed to keep new readers laughing and turning pages. (Graphic early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4341-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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