While the clever illustrations might draw children to the app, the overall package does not deliver a wholesome offering.
Mixing together satire, visual recipes and quirky illustrations, this app takes a fresh approach; unfortunately, the results seem a bit half-baked.
A saucy interview with The Carrot starts off this unconventional app. “My ideal role is in Carrot Soup but I am open to suggestions. Vegetable Soup was as a result of solid cooperation with Potato, Parsley, Celery and Brussels Sprout.” A short chapter on vitamins follows, but the interactive features fail to add to readers’ knowledge; readers simply touch the apple, then an apple core and finally a smiling girl to show that eating fruit makes for happy, healthy kids, for instance. The illustrations complement the satirical tone with offbeat animated characters. A bag of flour waves—“Hey, hey”—and an egg gallantly tips its hat. But the stylish illustrations don’t make up for the overall lack of substance. Recipes are not spelled out clearly for young readers to follow. Nutritional facts are obscured by the focus on humorous caricatures. Interactive features are uneven and do not further real understanding of the content. Awkward sentences, possibly due to poor translation, contribute further problems.
While the clever illustrations might draw children to the app, the overall package does not deliver a wholesome offering. (iPad informational app. 5-10)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: THE STORY
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 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
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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