A silly collection of stanzas about a charming pup whose personality is ably captured in colorful pictures.
This wonderfully illustrated debut introduces Louie, a clothes-wearing, kung fu–fighting canine in the tradition of Snoopy.
Louie the Lhasa apso is a real pal to his human owner, and despite his furry exterior, he’s convinced he’s a human, too. Each spread about Louie’s adventures features six lines of rhyming verse in an AABBCC pattern. Louie learns kung fu, wins a mud run (cheered on by his teammate, the boy narrator), picks up takeout Chinese food for the family, screams at a monster movie, and dresses up as a ghost before catching a cold and needing to rest. Then he’s back in action, sailing out to live on a buoy, singing and performing piano in a concert hall, flying to Hawaii for vacation, visiting Australia, and hanging out at the zoo with his owner. The biggest drawback here is that the first line of each stanza ends with either Lou or Louie, and there’s only so many words that rhyme with those two names, leading to some less-than-stellar results: “A dinner dish favorite for my picky eater Louie / is a plate of Chinese food, especially chop suey.” There’s no real transition from spread to spread, just a scattered list of the silly things Louie does, including some awkward flirting with the Hawaiian girls on his vacation. Each stanza keeps to its pattern well, and dog-loving kids may not mind the sometimes turned about phrasing of the first two lines as they celebrate the gleefully absurd actions of the “kinda human” dog. G’s cartoonish illustrations are delightful, capturing the silliness of Louie’s activities without undermining the fun. Louie, who walks upright like a human, typically wears a purple T-shirt, unless he’s dressed for snorkeling or performing at a concert. Louie and his owner, a blue-eyed Caucasian boy, are the only two repeating characters, but the rest of the cast features characters of different ages, ethnicities, and species. In a seafaring stanza, a clever fish steals Capt. Louie’s hat.
A silly collection of stanzas about a charming pup whose personality is ably captured in colorful pictures.Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5049-1993-7
Page Count: 34
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 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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