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PIPPI IN THE SOUTH SEAS

Pippi, a carrot-haired Swedish girl, once again embarks on a series of pranks, capers, and mischief which add up to one grand adventure for her and her two companions. In this episode, a sequel to Pippi Longstocking, Pippi Goes on Board, Pippi, Tommy and Annika take off on a boat on which Pippi's father is captain and sail to an island on which he is King. Throughout the expedition Pippi manifests her tremendous capacity for humor, imagination, and extraordinary physical strength in a manner which will delight those readers already familiar with her and win for her many ardent new friends.

Pub Date: Sept. 18, 1959

ISBN: 0140309586

Page Count: 125

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1959

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STINK AND THE MIDNIGHT ZOMBIE WALK

From the Stink series

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...

An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.

This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.

Pub Date: March 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012

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FLORA AND THE JAZZERS

A sumptuously illustrated Jazz Age Cinderella story.

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In author-illustrator Sheckels’ picture book, a maid at a grand hotel dreams of watching her favorite band perform.

In a world of genteel, anthropomorphized animals, Flora, a ferret, works as a scullery maid in a ritzy, three-story hotel. Scouring and scrubbing in her blue dress and apron, Flora hums along to the music in her heart, hoping that one day she’ll save enough pennies to attend a concert. When her favorite band, the Jazzers, is booked to play at the hotel, Flora desperately wants to watch them perform. The hotel manager, a snobbish fox, turns her away—but then the Jazzers themselves hear her humming outside their room. They’re in need of a vocalist, so they invite her to be their guest soloist, and then to join them permanently. Sheckels tells Flora’s story in straightforward, unrhymed prose, allowing the characters to take center stage without distraction; Flora is easily identifiable as a Cinderella archetype. The lush, hand-painted illustrations are whimsical in the tradition of Beatrix Potter, Inga Moore, and Jill Barklem, capture an Edwardian opulence as well as the grittier circumstances of those whose labors maintained such opulence. The Jazzers, consisting of waistcoated racoon (double bass), skunk (drums), rabbit (piano), and possum (saxophone), evoke a time when free-spirited bohemianism aimed to challenge class barriers.

A sumptuously illustrated Jazz Age Cinderella story.

Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025

ISBN: 9781956393187

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Waxwing Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025

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