It means well, but there are better books about the power of words.
A girl collects words for the fun of it.
Inspired by her teacher, accompanied by her dog, and carrying a pink attaché case, Delores Thesaurus, who wears glasses and has braces on her teeth, searches for big words to add to her ever burgeoning stock. Tantalizing gems arise on signs and in overheard conversations, and these Delores eagerly writes down and stashes in her case. When a pelican flies off with the attaché case, Delores frantically pursues it, to no avail. Equally useless are Delores’ efforts to enlist help from various passers-by: Articulating some of her big words—incorrectly—to explain her plight, she fails to convey her desperation to seemingly uninterested bystanders. A kindly shopkeeper, a woman of color, finally steps in, gently helping the little white girl understand she had confused everyone with her inaccurate language and clarifying this point by defining the words. She hands Delores a dictionary, prompting the girl to adopt a new nickname. This overlong narrative, expressed in very clunky verse that often scans poorly, may try kids’ patience. The illustrations are colorful if static and incorporate some exciting words used in the text in addition to other interesting vocabulary; readers will enjoy poring over these in the drawings. The book also makes a subtle, welcome point by putting a woman of color in the position of linguistic expert.
It means well, but there are better books about the power of words. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4867-1463-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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
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