A duo’s blasé afternoon deviates into an unexpected journey crossing dimension and time.
Jane, a red-haired, adventure-seeking girl, and her cautious friend Pablo, an anxious boy with oval-rimmed glasses, have exhausted their array of entertainment options: they’ve played board games, flicked through comic books, dismembered toys. Their boredom produces a trek to the old house on the hill, where they meet Dr. Jules, a talking rat and the architect of a hot air–powered time contraption. A cunning cat, Felinibus, steals pieces from the contraption and tricks the trio into the Monster Dimension. Sabotaged and with a dinner curfew looming, they set out to find the missing pieces. Domingo successfully shifts from comic panels to labyrinthine double-page spreads, from a fast-paced adventure to a focused quest. In pursuit of Felinibus and the stolen pieces, Jane, Pablo, and Dr. Jules dodge danger time and time again as they drift over Lopsided London through Macabre Marrakech, Bone-Chilling Bayou, and other such locales to Immortal India. Filled with alliteration and challenging vocabulary, the story blends adventure, a familiar Where’s Waldo concept, myth, and expedition for a new, clever search-and-find.
Original art and visually engrossing worlds will have readers visiting this book over and over again . (Graphic adventure. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-909263-36-9
Page Count: 57
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
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Never underestimate the chaotic fun that magic and an angry bouncing ball can create.
When Frog goes to the library, he borrows a book on magic. He then heads to a nearby park to read up on the skills necessary to becoming “a great magician.” Suddenly, a deflated yellow ball lands with a “Thud!” at his feet. Although he flexes his new magician muscles, Frog’s spells fall as flat as the ball. But when Frog shouts “Phooey!” and kicks the ball away, it inflates to become a big, angry ball. The ball begins to chase Frog, so he seeks shelter in the library—and Frog and ball turn the library’s usual calm into chaos. The cartoon chase crescendos. The ball bounces into the middle of a game of chess, interrupts a puppet show, and crashes into walls and bookcases. Staying just one bounce ahead, Frog runs, hides, grabs a ride on a book cart, and scatters books and papers as he slides across the library furniture before an alligator patron catches the ball and kicks it out the library door. But that’s not the end of the ball….Caple’s tidy panels and pastel-hued cartoons make a surprisingly effective setting for the slapstick, which should have young readers giggling. Simple sentences—often just subject and verb—with lots of repetition propel the action. Frog’s nonsense-word spells (“Poof Wiffle, Bop Bip!”) are both funny and excellent practice in phonetics. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Fast and furious action guaranteed to keep new readers laughing and turning pages. (Graphic early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4341-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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In this blatantly commercial retread, the author of Night at the Museum (1994, revised 2007, film version 2006) gives the marine exhibits a turn to frolic.
Having hurried to work, museum guard Larry frets as he nods off that he’s left the bathtub faucet on back home—which translates in a dream to a flooded Manhattan and a museum building pushed out to sea by the blue whale and other reanimated specimens. The cartoon art looks equally dashed off, with sketchy backdrops fronted by hastily drawn figures like an octopus that never shows more than five tentacles and a seahorse that’s the same size as the adjacent sea turtle. Unsurprisingly, with help from his daughter Melissa, Larry gets the faucet turned off, the water drained away and the exhibits back in their proper places before dawn. Earnest closing disclaimers that it’s not actually possible either to flood Manhattan from a faucet or to pull the American Museum of Natural History anywhere are superfluous, if not downright condescending.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, flooding New York might not be the best-timed story idea. Larry’s promise of yet more sequels in the works is equally ill-advised. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8948-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
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