DEAR FLYARY

Name: DEAR FLYARY
Author: Dianne Young
ISBN: 978-1-55453-488-7

by Dianne Young & illustrated by John Martz ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2012

There is much fun to be had sounding out words and guessing at their meaning and roots, as planet Harbat’s jabberwocky...

bookshelf

It may have a loose tarsnaggle, a sticky megalad and a hole in the flyjacker, but Frazzle’s Model 7 spaceship is positively flixsome.

A little alien—with his one great dewy eye, he's a dear, cyclopean ant-head—gets a flyary (diary) for his dropday (birthday), which he duly fills with the joys and travails of his first spaceship. Same as it ever was: The spaceship works like a dream for a few months, then starts to give Frazzle the vapors when it starts make strange noises. Good old Wurpitz Hoolo, the whiz mechanic, assures him that Model 7s are known for their harmless, if odd boinks, piffles and ticks. Young lards the text with enough otherworldly words—noteymaker to exboom to peepered—to keep readers on their toes and to beef up what is essentially a story about remaining true to your old and trusty friends, in this case a spaceship that gradually turns from sleek sky-streaker to old jalopy (“But I still bigheart my little ‘rugger’ Model 7,” says Frazzle), despite the flash and dazzle of the new. Adding to the endearment factor are Martz’s illustrations, as shiny and color-shot as ribbon candy, from Hoolo’s classic mechanic’s shop to the traffic jam on the flyway.

There is much fun to be had sounding out words and guessing at their meaning and roots, as planet Harbat’s jabberwocky attests. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: March 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-55453-488-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Kids Can

Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
GRAMPA, WILL YOU TELL ME A STORY?
by Dianne Young ; illustrated by Brian Crane

bookshelf

TOYS GALORE

by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Bob Staake ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2013

Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children...

bookshelf

A fizzy yet revealing romp through the toy world.

Though of standard picture-book size, Stein and illustrator Staake’s latest collaboration (Bugs Galore, 2012, etc.) presents a sweeping compendium of diversions for the young. From fairies and gnomes, race cars and jacks, tin cans and socks, to pots ’n’ pans and a cardboard box, Stein combs the toy kingdom for equally thrilling sources of fun. These light, tightly rhymed quatrains focus nicely on the functions characterizing various objects, such as “Floaty, bubbly, / while-you-wash toys” or “Sharing-secrets- / with-tin-cans toys,” rather than flatly stating their names. Such ambiguity at once offers Staake free artistic rein to depict copious items capable of performing those tasks and provides pre-readers ample freedom to draw from the experiences of their own toy chests as they scan Staake’s vibrant spreads brimming with chunky, digitally rendered objects and children at play. The sense of community and sharing suggested by most of the spreads contributes well to Stein’s ultimate theme, which he frames by asking: “But which toy is / the best toy ever? / The one most fun? / Most cool and clever?” Faced with three concluding pages filled with all sorts of indoor and outside toys to choose from, youngsters may be shocked to learn, on turning to the final spread, that the greatest one of all—“a toy SENSATION!”—proves to be “[y]our very own / imagination.”

Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children everywhere. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-7636-6254-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
A TREE FOR MR. FISH
by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Peter Stein

- BOOK REVIEW
THE RUNAWAY NO-WHEELER
by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Bob Staake

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BOY AND THE BEAR
by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Peter Stein

bookshelf

SEE PIP POINT

From the Adventures of Otto series

by David Milgrim & illustrated by David Milgrim ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2003

Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...

bookshelf

In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.

The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.

Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)