A stylish, retro addition to the seek-and-find genre.
The indefatigable helper introduced in Mr Tweed’s Good Deeds (2014) continues his worthy work.
It seems that the jazz band Mr Tweed—a dapper dog sporting a monumentally tall top hat—has come to the zoo to hear has scattered about the grounds. So off he goes to spot (with readers’ help, natch) guitar player Pinky Jackson among a crowd of fellow flamingos, Mary Lou Lemur and her saxophone lurking in the dense Lost Forest, trombonist Otis O’Rangutan, and seven more animal performers in time for the show. Reminiscent of Peter Max’s psychedelic-era fancies for color, style, and surreal sensibility, Stoten’s busy but not overwhelming zoo scenes are thronged with a mix of clothed animals and human visitors of diverse age and skin color. The search concludes at last in the bustling gift shop (which doubles as a performance space), and the regathered band salutes Mr Tweed as he strolls off to, no doubt, more good deeds.
A stylish, retro addition to the seek-and-find genre. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-911171-29-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up.
Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields.
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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