A bright medley of friendship, problem-solving, and identity ideal for emerging readers looking for the next step up from...
Best friends Bird and Squirrel embark upon a new graphic-novel adventure, in which they make a new friend and find the dynamics of their friendship changing.
Sky-blue, acorn-hatted Squirrel is nervous. He's afraid of everything—even dust. His best friend, the lemon-yellow, aviator-goggled Bird, is fearless. One day, on a stroll through their woodland home, they spy a bear cub cornered by a vicious pair of wolves. Bird can’t stand to see two against one ("that’s not right,” he declares), so he hatches a plan to pelt the lupine bullies with pine cones. Timid Squirrel however, misfires and accidentally beans poor Bird, knocking him out. Now Bird cannot remember who—or what—he is, and Squirrel is left to protect Bear and Bird from the ferocious wolves. The pair’s established dynamics have now reversed, leaving Bird now fearful and unsure and Squirrel having to step up and muster his courage. Although it’s a rather gentle story of animal amity, Burks has adroitly managed to infuse it with a rollicking pace, cutely quirky characters, and lively illustrations that practically leap off the page, creating a subtle complexity that is usually missing from such buddy tales.
A bright medley of friendship, problem-solving, and identity ideal for emerging readers looking for the next step up from leveled readers. (Graphic fiction. 7-12)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-80425-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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