While there are clever visuals and excellent cartoon-villain laughter, this book fails to deliver a satisfying story.
This Belgian picture-book debut introduces a boy who loves to swing, his father, and a monster.
Readers first see the white duo bundled in hats and long scarves. Then the father disappears, and the focus shifts to the swinging child and the (initially offstage) titular monster: it smells “of sprouts and old slippers,” and it likes to eat children. The limited palette for the woodland images and backgrounds features mint green, orange, black, white, and tan. Each spread is carefully coordinated, and pattern trumps perspective. The narrative and image placement are sometimes disjointed or confusing, as when two separate domiciles are mentioned in the text but only one is depicted. A little further on, the text on a double-page spread is merely a repetitive list—a search-and-find. The monster enters as a shadow, his long, wavy arms grasping at the swinging child. The boy keeps laughing as the creature repeatedly howls a longer version of the titular nonsense word—a humorous sound to produce—to no avail. In a perplexing penultimate scene, the monster returns home, embarrassed at having failed to frighten the child. (Showing an actual creature is inconsistent with prior treatment and the gag). Father and son leave, anticlimactically, casting scarf shadows that resemble outstretched arms.
While there are clever visuals and excellent cartoon-villain laughter, this book fails to deliver a satisfying story. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77138-566-4
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
A playful, funny, and heartfelt tale to soothe the back-to-school blues.
A young lycanthrope frets about the first night of school.
It’s time for Sophie to head off to howlergarten for her first full moon—but what if she fails to transform into a werewolf like her parents? She worries about being away from her parents, too, but she meets new friends, participates in werewolf training (which entails tracking scents, moving like a wolf, and listening “to the whispers of the wind”), and survives her first full moon. Warm and empathetic Sophie even offers reassurance to a classmate who doesn’t transform. Shum’s story is a sweetly encouraging and appealing take on the perennial topic of first-day-of-school jitters. Though the book features werewolves, Sophie is relatable, her concerns—separation anxiety, fears that she won’t fit in or do well at school—likely to resonate with many youngsters. The illustrations alternate between full- and half-page spreads and vignettes; the use of panels on one page gives the book the feel of comics. Though the main characters are werewolves, they’re nevertheless an endearing bunch, sweet and furry, with oversized round heads and sturdy bodies. One adorable scene shows Sophie and the other children at howlergarten snoozing, curled up like pups rather than kids. Sophie’s mom has dark brown skin, while Sophie and her father are tan-skinned. The howlergarten students are diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A playful, funny, and heartfelt tale to soothe the back-to-school blues. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9780593521274
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
A few moments shine, but all in all an overstuffed effort.
What with keeping the fridge stocked with slug mush and sour green milk, incidentals such as mud soap and fang paste seem downright ordinary—unlike the consequences of ignoring the emphatic “Don’t”s populating this unorthodox DIY manual: “massive monster tantrums.”
The six-step bedtime instructions are scrawled on wide-ruled school paper, detailing the biracial bunny-slippered protagonist’s superior strategizing skills. If the detailed formula is rigidly adhered to, the rowdy monster will allow itself to go from a soothing ice bath to bedtime story to screeching lullaby to, finally, sleep. OHora’s signature color palette and tongue-in-cheek retro illustrations with a matte finish bring Vega’s uneven story to uproarious life. The sheep sandwich heading for the cavernous maw looks appropriately terrified, in contrast to the tiny terrier worrying the gigantic, furred monster’s knees. From the parents (a shell-shocked black mom cradles her cringing white husband) to the exuberant grizzly-sized, pom-pom–sporting, rainbow-striped monster, the delightful characters revolve around a no-nonsense, brown-skinned child rocking her own pom-pom ’do. Regrettably, Vega tries too hard to be cute. There is a game of “toss-the-slime-ball,” the information that “monsters hate milk unless it’s sour and green and smells like dirty underwear,” and instructions to “read the freakiest, creepiest, scariest story from your bookshelf—screaming where appropriate”—it’s all just too much.
A few moments shine, but all in all an overstuffed effort. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-49655-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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