Kids will think twice before smooshing the next bug they see after reading this engaging story.
In Presnar’s (Being Boots, 2014, etc.) children’s book, an ant encounters scary creatures while searching a house for a safe place to live.
Timmy is a new ant scout in charge of finding his colony a dry space away from the rain. He wears khaki pants sewed by his mother, a headlamp, goggles, and boots on four of his six legs (the others hold his lunch and a compass). He’s nervous about his first excursion, but the other ants goad him on. As their underground tunnel fills with water, Timmy slips, slides, and digs his way up into the grass. He reaches a house and finds a way in through a small hole in a concrete wall: “Go in! Be Brave!” says a voice inside him. Although he’s scared of the unknown, he explores every level of the house by climbing stairs, cables, and power lines. At each turn, he bumps into frightening creatures: spiders and their sticky webs, a hairy dog, a crazy cat, a dirty rat, and diving bats. He wants to save the day, but it’s clear that this house isn’t safe for his colony. Fortunately, the rain finally stops, the sun comes out, and Timmy’s friends and family consider him a hero anyway. Author and illustrator Presnar writes in an introduction that she created this story to help one of her own grandchildren face his fear of crawling insects. Her hand-drawn illustrations are colorful and cute and have plenty of homey details; for example, water pours from the house’s gutters, sweet rolls sit on the kitchen counter, and the cat lounges on a pretty, flower-patterned bedspread. She doesn’t usually draw Timmy to scale—he’s about the same size as a dustpan hanging in the basement—but this doesn’t detract from the overall story. Save for a couple of awkwardly arranged lines (such as, “he hoped the other ants were done with all the things they pleaded”), the rhymes are fun, and they’re appropriate for elementary school–age readers. Timmy’s adventure brings an important lesson for young readers to life: not only should you confront your fears, but you should also consider others’ perspectives while doing so.
Kids will think twice before smooshing the next bug they see after reading this engaging story.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1503534186
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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