Unusual, but ultimately unimaginative and uninspiring.
Another adaptation of the popular ballet story.
This is something of a free-form storybook app, in that there are few boundaries in its presentation. While most apps follow the traditional left-to-right reading format, this one doesn’t even have clearly defined pages. Rather, it scrolls downward. Apart from the three “chapters,” there are rarely stopping places that don’t include partial text or graphics from another scene. Font and text color vary, which somehow adds structure. The developer was guided by the Reggio Emilia approach to learning, a model that, among other things, encourages children to develop their own theories and frameworks. Interactions are often unconventional, with text and/or graphics sliding across the screen as though they’re on a pulley that’s triggered by scrolling motion. Readers can help Clara put the Nutcracker back together, prompt the clock to strike eight (thought it really only strikes once while the clock arms rotate) and complete such languid tasks as rubbing frost from a window or shaking a basket—none of which have much interactive payoff. The writing, supposedly presented at a fourth-grade level, is functional but wobbly in spots (Arabians are referred to as “Arabics,” for example). The music, of course, is from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, but it’s presented in ultrashort sound bites that end abruptly.
Unusual, but ultimately unimaginative and uninspiring. (iPad storybook app. 6-10)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Timbuktu
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
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