In a tour de force of visual sequencing captioned only by a set of rhyming street and shop signs, Small sets up a hilarious chain of events along a busy city street. The action starts on the front endpapers as a street performer’s monkey snatches a banana from a fruit stand and tosses the peel onto the sidewalk. This sets off an escalating ruckus that moves around the block (and is actually mapped out on the rear endpapers), involving pedestrians, a painter atop a ladder, cars and trucks, dogs (lots of dogs), much flying through the air and a hurtling carriage with a delighted baby on board (for part of the way, anyway). Composed in fluent pen lines and watercolor brushwork, the scenes are chock full of comically dismayed characters, and surprisingly easy to follow despite the frenetic activity. In addition, for all its brevity, the text sets up a strong background rhythm—“4-Way Stop / Barber Shop / One-Way Street / NO BARE FEET”—that complements the breathless visual pacing. Ultimately, a disastrous encounter between a careening garbage truck and an entire shipment of bananas brings the tale back to where it began, whereupon all of the participants, human and otherwise, gather in a closing spread for an amicable bananafest. More fun than a barrel of . . . well. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-689-84251-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2006
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A Cinderella parody features the off-the-wall, whang-dang Texas hyperbole of Ketteman (The Year of No More Corn, 1993, etc.) and the insouciance of Warhola, who proves himself only too capable of creating a fairy godcow; that she's so appealingly whimsical makes it easy to accept the classic tale's inversions. The protagonist is Bubba, appropriately downtrodden and overworked by his wicked stepdaddy and loathsome brothers Dwayne and Milton, who spend their days bossing him around. The other half of the happy couple is Miz Lurleen, who owns ``the biggest spread west of the Brazos.'' She craves male companionship to help her work the place, ``and it wouldn't hurt if he was cute as a cow's ear, either.'' There are no surprises in this version except in the hilarious way the premise plays itself out and in Warhola's delightful visual surprises. When Lurleen tracks the bootless Bubba down, ``Dwayne and Milton and their wicked daddy threw chicken fits.'' Bubba and babe, hair as big as a Texas sun, ride off to a life of happy ranching, and readers will be proud to have been along for the courtship. (Picture book/folklore. 6-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-590-25506-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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