Poignant ending notwithstanding, terrific fun for the Oshkosh set, with opportunities aplenty to practice motor skills, make...
A child’s scheme to keep her commuting dad home inspires a polyfunctional machine festooned with dials, switches, levers, buttons and other controls—not to mention cats.
Based on an original design by a real child—who also supplies one of the two voices for the narrative’s animated audio—the machine features interactions aplenty. There are stations in which gears move by turning a crank, “turners” raise and lower flames in a boiler, “bashers” can be made to pound faster or slower, colors and shapes can be selected, and other functions are controlled with taps and swipes. The cartoon pictures are all drawn in simple, wobbly lines on ruled notebook paper, and the text is similarly artless: “ ‘This must be a poker,’ I casually figure. / ‘No, they’re puffers!’ she scolds me. ‘They puff things up bigger.’ ” The movements are not only broad and easy to follow, they include such sophisticated elements as a color-mixing station (three colors, but still) and a remotely controlled robot arm. Furthermore, a wordless menu/index can be pulled down at will to toggle the audio, the appropriately clang-y background music…and also the inquisitive cats that narrowly escape being bashed, baked or otherwise processed in each scene. As it turns out, the machine’s purpose is to make food, and dad’s sad response that he still has to go to work leaves the undeterred young inventor planning further machines to relieve him of the necessity.
Poignant ending notwithstanding, terrific fun for the Oshkosh set, with opportunities aplenty to practice motor skills, make choices and observe cause and effect. (Requires iOS 6 and above.) (iPad storybook app. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: RocketWagon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
A wandering effort, happy but pointless.
The perfect book for kids who love dragons and mild tacos.
Rubin’s story starts with an incantatory edge: “Hey, kid! Did you know that dragons love tacos? They love beef tacos and chicken tacos. They love really big gigantic tacos and tiny little baby tacos as well.” The playing field is set: dragons, tacos. As a pairing, they are fairly silly, and when the kicker comes in—that dragons hate spicy salsa, which ignites their inner fireworks—the silliness is sillier still. Second nature, after all, is for dragons to blow flames out their noses. So when the kid throws a taco party for the dragons, it seems a weak device that the clearly labeled “totally mild” salsa comes with spicy jalapenos in the fine print, prompting the dragons to burn down the house, resulting in a barn-raising at which more tacos are served. Harmless, but if there is a parable hidden in the dragon-taco tale, it is hidden in the unlit deep, and as a measure of lunacy, bridled or unbridled, it doesn’t make the leap into the outer reaches of imagination. Salmieri’s artwork is fitting, with a crabbed, ethereal line work reminiscent of Peter Sís, but the story does not offer it enough range.
A wandering effort, happy but pointless. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3680-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.
You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!
What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0534-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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