A restless meerkat’s wanderjahr lasts just six days, but that’s long enough to visit as many members of his far-flung clan. Chafing at his large family’s “Stay safe, stay together” lifestyle, Sunny packs a suitcase and goes off to visit a string of relatives, from Liberian mongoose cousins Mildred and Frank to Great Aunt Flo the marsh mongoose—oblivious to the predatory hyena struggling along behind. Unhappily, as he reports back on a set of lift-the-flap picture postcards, none of the places he visits are as warm or comfortable as his familiar old burrow, so in the end it’s back to the Kalahari. There he gets a big welcome party with a banner, hugs, a platter of yummy scorpions . . . and the frustrated hyena gets a jeering send-off. Gravett depicts the meerkats, the mongooses and their varied habitats in deftly brushed watercolors, adding lighthearted riffs (the postcard from Aunt Flo’s swamp is an ad for the “Dive-In Self-Service Restaurant”) and decorating the endpapers with faux photos and newspaper clippings. Along with humor and suspense, she folds snippets of natural history into the tale—and it’s worth noting that meerkats outdo even kittens for cuteness and personality. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4169-3473-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
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BOOK REVIEW
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PROFILES
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
With wordplay reminiscent of Margie Palatini at her best, Helakoski takes four timorous chickens into, then out of, the literal and figurative woods. Fleeing the henhouse after catching sight of a wolf, the pusillanimous pullets come to a deep ditch: “ ‘What if we can’t jump that far?’ ‘What if we fall in the ditch?’ ‘What if we get sucked into the mud?’ The chickens tutted, putted, and flutted. They butted into themselves and each other, until one by one . . . ” they do fall in. But then they pick themselves up and struggle out. Ensuing encounters with cows and a lake furnish similar responses and outcomes; ultimately they tumble into the wolf’s very cave, where they “picked, pecked, and pocked. They ruffled, puffled, and shuffled. They shrieked, squeaked, and freaked, until . . . ” their nemesis scampers away in panic. Fluttering about in pop-eyed terror, the portly, partly clothed hens make comical figures in Cole’s sunny cartoons (as does the flummoxed wolf)—but the genuine triumph in their final strut—“ ‘I am a big, brave chicken,’ said one chicken. ‘Ohh . . . ’ said the others. ‘Me too.’ ‘Me three.’ ‘Me four’ ”—brings this tribute to chicken power to a rousing close. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-47575-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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