A comic episode with a bit of a bite (implied, not explicit) at the end.
A nearsighted T. Rex stumbles into a chain of calamities after losing his eyeglasses.
Mr. Magoo has nothing on this poor dino: “He went to give himself a wash, / but could not find the basin… // …and so the toilet was the place / that T-Rex washed his face in.” He also dons his sister’s undies and mistakes Grandpa’s slippers for his breakfast kippers. Diverse misadventures later he manages to lose the spectacles for good in his lunch—either eating them (according to the text) or obliviously chucking them away with the bones (in the picture). Ross reinforces the haplessness of his ungainly unfortunate by dressing him in saggy blue trousers, and he has the dino react to each blunder with squinty imperturbability…until, that is, the T. Rex runs to hug what he thinks is his own mom and turns out to be clutching the leg of a much bigger, toothier, more predatory parent. Whoopsie. Well, readers familiar with Willis and Ross’ more naturalistic little fables, such as Tadpole’s Promise (2005), won’t be surprised.
A comic episode with a bit of a bite (implied, not explicit) at the end. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78344-549-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Andersen Press USA
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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