Bowen (Stranded on Plimoth Plantation 1626, 1994) makes a brave and not very successful effort to turn some two dozen of Kimble’s folk-art livestock portraits into a connected narrative. Seeking commissions, an itinerant 19th-century artist seems to follow an animal thief through a series of Vermont towns. After puzzling over such clues as hearing several animals utter “Ite-osh-urr,” and learning that no white animals are stolen, he solves the mystery at a county fair in Castleton, at which the culprit is revealed as a “whitewasher” attempting to put disguised livestock up for auction. The painter collects a reward, allowing him to realize a long-held dream of visiting Africa. Applying thin layers of paint to distressed antique wood, Kimble depicts big, bushy cats, dignified horses, and other creatures in simple, usually rural settings, sliding into whimsy with a proud rooster decked out in red, white, and blue, then closes with a spread of elephants, giraffes, and the like. Children will enjoy the individual pictures, but next to such folk-art showcases as Barbara Ann Porte’s Chickens! Chickens! (1995) and Black Elephant with a Brown Ear (in Alabama) (1996), this comes off as a rambling, wordy contrivance. (Picture book. 8-10)
Pub Date: May 31, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-028408-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-688-15338-0 Sometimes the way the cookie crumbles is a saving grace, particularly in this clever spoof on a hard-boiled detective tale, set inside the cookie jar. The “tough cookie” who narrates is a trenchcoat-wearing, gruff detective who came from a good family—“Lots of dough. Lived the high life. Top of the Jar.” But when he hit bottom, he became a P.I. Now he’s tracking the culprit who’s making mayhem out of the cookie jar by snatching away cookies such as the Pfefferneuses, and roughing up the tough cookie’s partner, Chips. Some quick thinking on the part of the P.I.’s delicious (a politically correct adjective, in this case) former girlfriend, Pecan Sandy, and a crowd of cookie crumbs thwarts the greedy fingers once and for all. The hero gets his man—or hand—and the girl. Wisniewski (The Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups, 1998, etc.) is dead-on witty, while his torn-paper collages have a authentically crumbly look. The puns are numerous, but good, and visual details’such as the map of the Jar, a wanted poster showing the shadowy outline “Fingers,” and more—guarantee lots of giggles for onlookers young and old. (Picture book. 4-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-15337-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
From Frettnin Forest, Beastshire, the orthographically challenged correspondent introduced in Little Wolf’s Book of Badness (1999) again reports nefarious doings and silly misadventures to his unsympathetic parents. A number of local baby animals having gone missing, along with some from a visiting circus, and Little Wolf and his associates at the newly formed Yelloweyes Forest Detective Agency take up their mail-order sleuth kits and spring into action. As usual, it all turns out to be the doing of Mr. Twister the fox, who with a homemade gene-modifying machine is recombining his captives into such useful new creatures as cat/spiders to guard his digs, a vegetarian lamb/lion, and a succulent hyena/mouse that can’t hide no matter how tall the grass. A Gen-Next e-mailer in the making, Little Wolf adorns his letters and blot-marred handwritten postscripts with creative spelling and made up words—“But do not fret and frown, we will solve this case soonly, easy cheesy. (Probly.)”—to which Ross adds plenty of sketchy cartoon portraits and vignettes. Once Mr. Twister has been sent packing (to return, no doubt, in future episodes), Little Wolf, his friends, and even obnoxious little brother Smellybreff throw over detective work to join the circus. Readers unfamiliar with this import’s first three installments may trip over a few continuing plot threads, but there’s plenty of noodleheaded humor, plus healthy doses of deduction and derring-do, to keep the howls coming. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-57505-413-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
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