Fans of Brett’s intricately detailed illustration style will find this a sweet treat.
Brett’s Gingerbread Baby skips in for his third story, this time celebrating Christmas in a Swiss Alpine village setting with a band of anthropomorphic gingerbread instruments.
The Gingerbread Baby’s human pal, a white boy named Matti, helps his cookie friend achieve his wish for his own band by baking and decorating a batch of gingerbread musical-instrument ornaments. The cookies all perform in the bandstand at the town Christmas festival in front of a large crowd of dancing townspeople in traditional costumes and friendly animals. A girl in a red coat points out that the instruments are really cookies, setting off an extended chase for tasty snacks, as in traditional versions of “The Gingerbread Man.” Matti turns the ornaments into little snowmen to hide them from the townspeople, and the Gingerbread Baby himself escapes and hides in the branches of the village Christmas tree, decorated with dozens of ornaments and sweets. The Christmas tree is a large pop-up feature within the last spread, constructed of laminated paper that should hold up to multiple Christmas seasons. Brett again uses her signature style of ornamental borders and side panels to extend the story, with borders of frosting and candies and panels including dancing children of different ethnic groups.
Fans of Brett’s intricately detailed illustration style will find this a sweet treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17071-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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