by Fiona Rempt & illustrated by Noëlle Smit & developed by Piccolo Picture Books Uniboek Het Spectrum b.v. ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 2010
Look for winces of sympathy and steady streams of laughter from young readers.
Bladder pressure drives a lad to desperate measures in this short but suspenseful import.
Weighing in at just 12 pages, young Brian’s increasingly frantic quest for relief nonetheless gushes with hilarity. His ride from school is cut short by a flat tire, both the “toilet” and the “bathroom” at home are occupied, the neighbors can’t hear him and he gets a hostile reception from a prickly bush. At last a tree that a dog is also watering provides a spot for sweet relief—followed by public embarrassment when he turns prematurely to watch a parade marching into view. Originally published in 2009 in the Netherlands, this digital version offers both text and (optional) audio narration in five languages, plus word-by-word highlighting. The conversion isn’t seamless, as each urban scene (done, appropriately, in watercolors) takes up a screen and a half and has to be dragged from side to side to be viewed in its entirety. Still, navigation is easy. Brian is discreetly angled in the cartoon art, and a continuing track of music or quiet urban noises (enhanced by several touch-activated sounds and small animations in each scene) backs up a comically expressive narration.
Look for winces of sympathy and steady streams of laughter from young readers. (iPad storybook app. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2010
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Piccolo Picture Books
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
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by Fiona Rempt & illustrated by Noëlle Smit
by John Segal and illustrated by John Segal ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2011
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
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by John Segal & illustrated by John Segal
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by John Segal & illustrated by John Segal
by Dana Meachen Rau ; illustrated by Wook Jin Jung ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2013
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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by Dana Meachen Rau and illustrated by Melissa Iwai
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