A story brimming with mimicry and mockery about Fiona, a flamingo who misses ``an important left turn'' and is separated from the flock; she lands on a banana boat whose captain has a flair for hip-hop: ``Well, crash my boat/and make me nervous!/I'm the Rappin' Cap'n/at your service.'' As she leaves the boat with the egg she has just laid, Fiona starts rapping herself, and she doesn't stop until she has walked all the way to Bolivia, passing different dangerous animals on the way. She reaches her flock and her husband, Fletcher, just as her egg hatches and out comes little Floyd, already singing his own rap songs. Remkiewicz's cartoons are full of bright, tropical colors, and his animals are real characters. But above all, the tall and thin Fiona (reminiscent of Olive Oyl) is an ideal subject for comic postures. The lickety- split text—half-prose, half rapping—has a witty, colloquial feel, and not one dull moment. Especially during the rap bits, readers will want to chant it out loud. Kids will love this book. (Picture book. 4+)
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-13145-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Steig (Toby, Where Are You?, 1997, etc.), inspired by a game he used to play with his daughter, turns a rainy day into a pizza party, starring a caring father and his feeling-blue son, Pete. Just when Pete was set to go play ball with his friends, it starts to rain. His melancholy is not lost on his father: “He thinks it might cheer Pete up to be made into a pizza.” Which is just what the father proceeds to do. Pete is transported to the kitchen table where he is kneaded and stretched, tossed into the air for shaping, sprinkled with oil and flour and tomatoes and cheese (water, talcum, checkers, and bits of paper). He then gets baked on the living room couch and tickled and chased until the sun comes out and it is time to speed outside, a pizza no more, but happy. What leaps from the page, with a dancer’s grace, is the warmth and imagination wrapped in an act of kindness and tuned- in parenting. As always, Steig’s illustrations are a natural—an organic—part of the story, whether Pete’s a pizza, or not. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-205157-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
Tales that “lay out your options for painful and interesting ways to die.” And to live.
In a similarly hefty companion to Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods (2014), the most voluble of Poseidon’s many sons dishes on a dozen more ancient relatives and fellow demigods.
Riordan averts his young yarn spinner’s eyes from the sex but not the stupidity, violence, malice, or bad choices that drive so many of the old tales. He leavens full, refreshingly tart accounts of the ups and downs of such higher-profile heroes as Theseus, Orpheus, Hercules, and Jason with the lesser-known but often equally awesome exploits of such butt-kicking ladies as Atalanta, Otrera (the first Amazon), and lion-wrestling Cyrene. In thought-provoking contrast, Psyche comes off as no less heroic, even though her story is less about general slaughter than the tough “Iron Housewives quests” Aphrodite forces her to undertake to rescue her beloved Eros. Furthermore, along with snarky chapter heads (“Phaethon Fails Driver’s Ed”), the contemporary labor includes references to Jay-Z, Apple Maps, god-to-god texting, and the like—not to mention the way the narrator makes fun of hard-to-pronounce names and points up such character flaws as ADHD (Theseus) and anger management issues (Hercules). The breezy treatment effectively blows off at least some of the dust obscuring the timeless themes in each hero’s career. In Rocco’s melodramatically murky illustrations, men and women alike display rippling thews and plenty of skin as they battle ravening monsters.
Tales that “lay out your options for painful and interesting ways to die.” And to live. (maps, index) (Mythology. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4231-8365-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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