Gourmands, armchair or otherwise, with strong stomachs will smack their lips.
A child captured by a hungry monster turns out to have some unusual ideas about preparing dinner.
Though the concept is not altogether new, this trickster tale has some special features of its own to offer—most particularly a set of outstandingly gross recipes like “Eyeball Sushi” and “Cockroach Cola” (“1. Pop the cockroaches in your mouth and crunch until blended. 2. Spit”) that give way at the end to dishes that sound revolting but have edible, even delicious, ingredients. With Sir Gutguzzler and other monstrous friends all sending formal RSVPs, each missive a glued-in, folded feature for little fingers to tease apart, Beast is looking forward to a memorable repast. But “Dinner,” a small child with light brown skin and an engaging mop of reddish curls, keeps suggesting improvements. Instead of fattening Dinner up with “putrid swill,” how about some chocolate cake? Rather than adding just a sprinkle of salt and a bare dip into a tub of slime, why not enjoy delightful outings to the sea and the local swamp? Soon Beast is thinking that Dinner doesn’t look like dinner any more…and Beast isn’t looking so beastly to the child, either. But what to feed the guests? Maybe “Chocolate Fingers” without actual fingers? The monsters all have a wonderful dinner. And Dinner does too.
Gourmands, armchair or otherwise, with strong stomachs will smack their lips. (Novelty picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68464-005-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0689845049
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
Vague text and anemic pictures make this at best a half-hearted tribute to the construction workers of the last century or so. In her brief, poetic text Johnson writes of “those shadowy building men . . . moving the earth to connect water,” of “railroad workers . . . who were there to connect all.” She continues: “As buildings tower above us / they tell the tales / of the cities . . . They whisper down past it all and say, / ‘They built us, your fathers . . .’ ” There is little here to engage child readers, either intellectually or emotionally, and Moser’s remote, indistinct portraits of ordinary-looking men (only men) dressed in sturdy working clothes and, mostly, at rest, only intermittently capture any sense of individual or collective effort. In evident recognition of these inadequacies, a prose afterword has been added to explain what the book is about—a superfluous feature had Moser and Johnson produced work up to their usual standards. Let readers spend time more profitably with the likes of John Henry or Mike Mulligan. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-66521-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
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