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
Playful, engaging, and full of opportunities for empathy—a raucous storytime hit.
Readers try to dislodge a monster from the pages of this emotive and interactive read-aloud.
“OH NO!” the story starts. “There’s a monster in your book!” The blue, round-headed monster with pink horns and a pink-tipped tail can be seen cheerfully munching on the opening page. “Let’s try to get him out,” declares the narrator. Readers are encouraged to shake, tilt, and spin the book around, while the monster careens around an empty background looking scared and lost. Viewers are exhorted to tickle the monster’s feet, blow on the page, and make a really loud noise. Finally, shockingly, it works: “Now he’s in your room!” But clearly a monster in your book is safer than a monster in your room, so he’s coaxed back into the illustrations and lulled to sleep, curled up under one page and cuddling a bit of another like a child with their blankie. The monster’s entirely cute appearance and clear emotional reactions to his treatment add to the interactive aspect, and some young readers might even resist the instructions to avoid hurting their new pal. Children will be brought along on the monster’s journey, going from excited, noisy, and wiggly to calm and steady (one can hope).
Playful, engaging, and full of opportunities for empathy—a raucous storytime hit. (Picture book. 2-7)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6456-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The greening of Dr. Seuss, in an ecology fable with an obvious message but a savingly silly style. In the desolate land of the Lifted Lorax, an aged creature called the Once-ler tells a young visitor how he arrived long ago in the then glorious country and began manufacturing anomalous objects called Thneeds from "the bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees." Despite protests from the Lorax, a native "who speaks for the trees," he continues to chop down Truffulas until he drives away the Brown Bar-ba-loots who had fed on the Tuffula fruit, the Swomee-Swans who can't sing a note for the smogulous smoke, and the Humming-Fish who had hummed in the pond now glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp. As for the Once-let, "1 went right on biggering, selling more Thneeds./ And I biggered my money, which everyone needs" — until the last Truffula falls. But one seed is left, and the Once-let hands it to his listener, with a message from the Lorax: "UNLESS someone like you/ cares a whole awful lot,/ nothing is going to get better./ It's not." The spontaneous madness of the old Dr. Seuss is absent here, but so is the boredom he often induced (in parents, anyway) with one ridiculous invention after another. And if the Once-let doesn't match the Grinch for sheer irresistible cussedness, he is stealing a lot more than Christmas and his story just might induce a generation of six-year-olds to care a whole lot.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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