Another playful imagination-stretcher from the author of Look! and Tickle Monster (both 2015). (Picture book. 6-8)
A ravening wolf, several potential victims, a wild chase, an ambush, and a spectacular reversal of fortune make for an exciting tale—even when all the characters stay home due to bad weather.
At once metafictive and interactive, the plotline is presented as a recurring story that runs its preordained course whenever its “keeper,” Mr. Warbler, steps out of his cottage to set the Big Bad Wolf to chasing a “delectable” pig, a clever hare, and a flying squirrel with a hot air balloon into the house of a former circus bear. This last blasts the predator out through a giant trumpet and so sends him away limping and muttering. That’s how the story goes on sunny days, at least. But today it happens to be raining—so though the narrative provides a blow-by-blow account of narrow escapes and lickety-split action, none of the cast, from keeper on, ever actually appears in Manceau’s deserted scenes of blocky, buttoned-up houses and geometrically tidy woodlands. No matter: with or without drawing materials, young readers will have little trouble conjuring up suitably colorful figures and dramatic tableaux of their own to superimpose on the backdrops. When, finally, the sun comes out, the narrator’s closing assurance that the story can now “start for real…” ends the exercise on a droll note.
Another playful imagination-stretcher from the author of Look! and Tickle Monster (both 2015). (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77147-151-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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Yarlett takes poor advantage of the format, as readers see only half of the correspondence, but the premise and punny names...
A lad finds a big red dragon in his basement and wisely seeks expert advice about its care and feeding in this epistolary episode.
Young Alexander’s missives (there are no cellphones, nor parents, in sight) are mostly paraphrased rather than shown, but each response comes as a small note folded into a pocket that’s been printed and shaped like an envelope: “Douse it in water right away!” writes panic-stricken fire chief H.Y. Drant; find it a large house or castle, advises B. East of World Animal Welfare; “fatten it up,” suggests Angus Teak the butcher (“Look forward to [eating, scratched out] meeting your dragon”) with sinister relish. Boy and dragon have wonderful times together, but the ultimate realization that dragons really don’t make good pets leads the narrator to follow the written advice of best friend Hillary (“the wisest person I knew”) and set it free. The later arrival of a slightly burned picture postcard in the “post” reassures him that the dragon won’t be forgetting to keep in touch. The human figures in Yarlett’s cartoon illustrations are either white or have their heads cut off at the page top. With the exception of the pasted-on postcard from the dragon at the end, all of the correspondence is removable and thereby losable.
Yarlett takes poor advantage of the format, as readers see only half of the correspondence, but the premise and punny names add some appeal. (Novelty. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61067-818-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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