Festive feline tomfoolery.
There’s no better gift for Christmas than a cat, right?
Everyone who celebrates Christmas can sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” but what about the 12 cats? “On the first day / of Christmas, / my true love gave to me / A kitten under the tree.” On the second day, that true love gives two more felines (for a total of three), and these are “batting bows.” Each day, another cat is added, and they all (kitten under the tree included) perform a different catly act: purring, sitting in boxes, clawing at wrapping paper, running after ribbons, watching snow fall. After each new cat arrives, the text counts back to that one kitten under the tree. As one would guess, when the rhyme gets to 12, the cats are climbing the tree, and the countdown ends with the original kitten sleeping under the result of the mayhem. Flores’ adaptation of the English carol will have feline fans giggling merrily, but Liao’s mixed-media illustrations, which resemble watercolors, are the real stars of the show. The expressive, hyperactive pusses doing nothing but being cats are a hoot. At the close, the cats from the illustrations are each introduced by name with their likes and dislikes. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Festive feline tomfoolery. (Picture book. 2-8)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4521-8461-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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