A thoughtfully designed storybook adds another helpful tool to the box for readers who need support.
Meg and Greg’s summer-camp exploits lend themselves to fun phonics stories for emerging readers.
Buddies Meg and Greg are spending two weeks at sleepaway camp. Each of the four segments in the book details a different camp misadventure and heavily features the phonogram du jour: nk, ng, tch, or dge. This is the second book in a series designed for children just learning to read or readers who are struggling due to dyslexia or other learning difficulties. The format of each chapter features stories related in prose on the left-hand side of the double-page spread and comics-style panels, with illustration labels, cartoons, and speech bubbles, on the right. Extension activities at the end of each segment offer further opportunities for practice. Meg, Greg, and the other campers get mixed up in pranks, humorous surprises, and even a disastrous canoe trip, which will work to hold older readers’ attention without feeling too predictable. The story in some sections suffers under the burden of including as many phonograms as possible: When Meg and Greg must devise a skit for a contest using words that end with “ng,” they perform “The King’s Long Fangs.” Dyslexia-friendly features are integrated into the book, and strategies for using the text features are clearly explained. Meg and Greg present white; there is some diversity among secondary characters indicated in the illustrations.
A thoughtfully designed storybook adds another helpful tool to the box for readers who need support. (glossary, tips) (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4598-2493-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Cute and brave—gee, Rot’s spud-tacular!
A “scaredy-spud” puts on his brave face.
All “mutant potatoes” love mud. Mud is good for playing games, eating, and even sleeping. But few taters have more tender feelings toward muck than Rot. À la Pete the Cat, Rot celebrates mud in song: “Mud between my toes! / Mud in my nose! / Mud is GREAT / wherever it GOES!” When Rot’s big brother, Snot, tells Rot about the Squirm that lives “deep down in the mushy muck,” his love quickly turns to fear. But he doesn’t give up! Instead, Rot imagines himself in various disguises to work up courage. There’s “Super Spud” (a superhero), “Sir Super Rot, the Brave and Bold” (a superhero-knight), and even “Sir Super Rot the Pigtato” (a, um, superhero-knight-pig-potato). The disguises are one thing, but, deep down, is Rot really brave enough to face the Squirm? Readers wooed by Rot’s charm in Rot: The Cutest in the World (2017) will laugh out loud at this well-paced encore—and it’s not just because of the butt cracks. Clanton creates a winning dynamic, balancing Rot’s earnestness, witty dialogue, and an omniscient, slightly melodramatic narrator. The cartoon illustrations were created using watercolors, colored pencils, digital collage, and—brilliantly—potato stamps. Clanton’s reliance on earth tones makes for some clever, surprising page turns when the palette is broken.
Cute and brave—gee, Rot’s spud-tacular! (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6764-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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