There’s no moral to this story, just irreverent fun.
When a tiger wants to make a cake, he and his friends fight over its ingredients with humorous (if naughty) results.
Cartoon-style, vibrantly colored art complete with speech balloons introduces a dog that wants a bone cake, a bunny that wants a carrot cake, a teddy bear that wants a fish cake and a monkey that suggests a banana cake. Tiger insists on chocolate, but the others respond with disgust when he lists the necessary ingredients. “Well, what shall we make then?” the tiger reasonably asks. When the group suggests a “bone-banana-carrot-and-fish cake,” the tiger’s speech balloon adopts a pointy intensity, as its large script bellows, “NO WAY! That would be revolting!” Instead of talking things through, the group responds, “YOU’RE REVOLTING!” An all-out brawl ensues. The four animals fling their food choices at the tiger, and then the tiger threatens to eat them. It’s unsurprising that they scurry away, leaving the tiger all alone. When they return, they come bearing the chocolate cake that adorns the book’s jacket, and at first the tiger is pleased—but then instead of eating the cake together, the other animals hurl it at the tiger, leaving readers with a vision of it just about to land on his striped head.
There’s no moral to this story, just irreverent fun. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-877579-45-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gecko Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Strange giants, sing-song rhymes and generic psychological advice don’t add up to a soothing bedtime read.
This odd compendium of story, song lyrics and advice to parents misses the mark as a prescription for sweet dreams.
The beginning and ending scenes focus on a little boy who is having difficulty getting to sleep. He concentrates on counting imaginary giants as a way to relax, enumerating groups of different giants from a pair up to six and then back down to another pair of huge creatures, shown with just their feet sticking out from a red blanket. The rhyming text in these sequences is quite sing-song and doesn’t scan well, possibly as a result of having been translated from the original German. The giants themselves have an eerie, nightmarish quality in the illustrations, which are done in a loose, cartoonlike style in watercolor and pencil. The activities of the giants are nonsensical, as in a dream, showing them on rooftops or coming out of a huge watering can. The words to a song are also provided, urging “happy thoughts” and repeated deep breathing, though there is no music included, and the words don’t readily transfer to a familiar melody. Two pages of advice to parents on getting children to sleep finish it off.
Strange giants, sing-song rhymes and generic psychological advice don’t add up to a soothing bedtime read. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4338-0950-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A familiar story skillfully reimagined for today’s gadget-savvy youth.
Hannah Hadley is a young special agent who must thwart a clear and present danger to the United States in Hoover’s “smart is cool” young adult novel.
Hannah Hadley might seem like most 13-year-old girls. She enjoys painting, playing with her MP3 player and spending time with friends. But that’s where the similarities end. Hadley doubles as Agent 10-1, among the youngest spies drafted into the CIA’s Div Y department. She’s joined in her missions by her 10-pound Shih Tzu, Kiwi (with whom she communicates telepathically), and her best friend Tommie Claire, a blind girl with heightened senses. When duty calls, the group sneaks to a hidden command center located under the floor of Hadley’s art studio. Her current mission, aptly named “Operation Farmer Jones,” takes her to a secluded farmhouse in Canada. There, al-Qaida terrorists have gathered the necessary ingredients for a particularly devastating nuclear warhead that they intend to fire into America. The villains are joined by the Mad Madam of Mayhem, a physicist for hire whom the terrorists force to complete the weapon of mass destruction. With Charlie Higson’s Young James Bond series and the ongoing 39 Clues novellas, covert missions and secret plans are the plots of choice in much of today’s fiction for young readers, and references to the famed 007 stories abound in Hoover’s tale. But while the plot feels familiar, Hoover’s use of modern slang—albeit strained at times—and gadgets such as the iTouch appeal to today’s youth. Placing girls in adult situations has been a mainstay since Mildred Wirt Benson first introduced readers to Nancy Drew in The Secret of the Old Clock, but Hannah Hadley is like Nancy Drew on steroids. Both are athletic, score well in their studies and have a measure of popularity. Hadley, however, displays a genius-level intellect and near superhuman abilities in her efforts to roust the terrorists—handy skills for a young teen spy who just so happens to get the best grades in school.
A familiar story skillfully reimagined for today’s gadget-savvy youth.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0615419688
Page Count: 239
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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