The premise might be built around kids learning their ABCs, but by the time they get to Z, they may have already graduated...
An alphabet-based story app places its emphasis on games rather than narrative.
Alph and Betty are inventors. The stylishly illustrated “story” begins with their elaborate, A-shaped horn alarm blaring, but initially, Betty is the only one who awakens. Readers must help Betty scale the screen like a mountain goat in order to find edibles that begin with that page’s letter and complete inane tasks (for example, rudimentary matching games that require much less skill than it takes to navigate the overall app). It appears that Betty cannot go on to the next letter until everything (yes, everything) has been found and engaged. But that’s easier said than done, as there’s no pattern, path or story-based logic to guide readers, and sometimes instructions or text boxes obscure the items readers need to find in order to advance the page. The help arrows are only mildly effective, and many readers may find themselves giving up before they’ve completed even half the alphabet. Although readers are guaranteed to spend quite a lot of time on each page, they are more likely to be concentrating on the tasks than absorbing alphabet skills. The “read it myself” option reads aloud anyway. For a much more sensible puzzle-solving storybook-app experience, see Bartleby’s Book of Buttons (2010).
The premise might be built around kids learning their ABCs, but by the time they get to Z, they may have already graduated high school. (Requires iOS 6 and above.) (iPad alphabet app. 4-8)Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Electric Circus
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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