So silly it’s unlikely to make new readers crabby.
Four linked vignettes featuring characters introduced in Fenske’s picture books (Plankton Is Pushy, 2017, etc.) use the same words over and over while providing context for vocabulary new to beginning readers.
Crabby lives up to their name—they're crabby. The sun’s in their eyes, salt’s in their teeth, sand’s in their shell—just another day at the beach. They're looking for excitement but are too self-absorbed to understand “boring Barnacle’s” warning, “Wave!” In the second chapter, “pushy Plankton” tries to get Crabby to see the bright side of life at the beach, but Crabby insists, “Crabs are crabby. It is what we do.” In Chapter 3, “The Joke,” Crabby refuses to be amused. Finally, in Chapter 4, Plankton almost gets Crabby to smile by baking them a five-layer chocolate cake. Even then, though, Crabby says, “I prefer lemon” and observes, “It is a little dry.” Crabby’s persistent grumpiness and the patient plankton’s exasperation are shown clearly in their expressive eyes and mouths as well as their dialogue. Pages broken into colorful panels and color-coded speech bubbles help beginning readers focus on the words. Flat, two-dimensional cartoon drawings and a smaller-than-usual trim are designed to help new readers make the transition to chapter books with denser text and fewer pictures. Instructions on drawing Crabby and a story prompt close the book.
So silly it’s unlikely to make new readers crabby. (Early reader. 4-6)Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-28151-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Acorn/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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