Pretty, but target-audience readers expecting much in the way of plot or character development get the shaft.
Prosaic writing and herky-jerky visual transitions mar the “story” part of this movie storybook, but the tale’s only a platform for a generous array of puzzles and other distractions anyway.
Backed by plaintive Hibernian music, a thickly accented narrator sketchily recaps the struggle between warlike young princess Merida and her prim royal mother, from the archery contest with prospective suitors and the spell that temporarily turns the queen into a bear (just in time for a climactic battle with a similarly cursed ursine) to the closing reconciliation. The text is nothing but pedestrian: “The next morning, Merida showed her mother how to catch fish in a stream. For the first time in a while, they had fun together.” The text panels slide in and out of view as scenes created in the film’s lushly detailed, 3-D style pan, zoom or shift angles. Only rarely do these changes occur smoothly enough to emulate video convincingly, however, and taps rarely activate more action than a small gesture or low-volume background sounds. The app offers options for self-recording and a frustratingly ponderous autoplay—along with, more temptingly, a multilevel shooting game, six coloring pages and six jigsaw puzzles accessible through scattered links or a “Play” icon on the title screen.
Pretty, but target-audience readers expecting much in the way of plot or character development get the shaft. (iPad movie storybook app. 6-8)Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Disney Publishing Worldwide Applications
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
With wordplay reminiscent of Margie Palatini at her best, Helakoski takes four timorous chickens into, then out of, the literal and figurative woods. Fleeing the henhouse after catching sight of a wolf, the pusillanimous pullets come to a deep ditch: “ ‘What if we can’t jump that far?’ ‘What if we fall in the ditch?’ ‘What if we get sucked into the mud?’ The chickens tutted, putted, and flutted. They butted into themselves and each other, until one by one . . . ” they do fall in. But then they pick themselves up and struggle out. Ensuing encounters with cows and a lake furnish similar responses and outcomes; ultimately they tumble into the wolf’s very cave, where they “picked, pecked, and pocked. They ruffled, puffled, and shuffled. They shrieked, squeaked, and freaked, until . . . ” their nemesis scampers away in panic. Fluttering about in pop-eyed terror, the portly, partly clothed hens make comical figures in Cole’s sunny cartoons (as does the flummoxed wolf)—but the genuine triumph in their final strut—“ ‘I am a big, brave chicken,’ said one chicken. ‘Ohh . . . ’ said the others. ‘Me too.’ ‘Me three.’ ‘Me four’ ”—brings this tribute to chicken power to a rousing close. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-47575-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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