A lively bedtime story for young adventurers.
During excellently illustrated misadventures beyond his forest home, a plucky baby raccoon learns that he should listen to his mom or risk getting trapped in sticky situations.
In a delightful debut, Younge pens a charming story worthy of young readers’ curiosity. “Raccoons are very mischievous animals,” and Sammy Ringtail “is no different.” He lives with his mom and his two siblings, Riley and Reggie, in an oak tree not too far from a metropolis called the Big City. Although he’s the youngest raccoon, “he wanted to prove that he could do everything even better than his brother and sister.” He seizes the opportunity to do exactly that after a visit from his uncle Jack. One evening, after listening to his uncle’s tall tales, Sammy disobeys his mom and escapes from his house to see the city firsthand. Alone, wide-eyed and naïve, Sammy survives with sheer luck and a little help from his loved ones. In this book, Younge creates lovable characters out of backyard critters often branded as nuisances. Through Sammy’s family, the author indirectly explains how and why raccoons forage in many suburban backyards. Younge is a skillful storyteller, so dialogue throughout the book is engaging and easy for youngsters to follow. Readers will also enjoy the book’s imaginative layout, which features cute raccoons and their paw prints walking across the pages. Moreover, the appealing color palette—blues, earthy browns, black, and splashes of yellow and silver light—provides a realistic sense of the forest at night, enhancing the book with a rascal charm. Though the writing is on par with the digital illustrations, it stops rather abruptly. For reasons that are unclear, the book ends before Sammy ever even reaches the Big City. Perhaps it’s the author’s intention to close this particular parable with a halfhearted cliffhanger; after all, a number of readers will demand an encore. Younge’s writing holds great promise, and Sammy’s bold antics could be spun into an entertaining series.
A lively bedtime story for young adventurers.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4602-2477-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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