In this mini-adventure, the grumpy villain is a deceptively deep puddle. The crafty mud first lures a pizza truck into its apparently shallow depths: "Slurp." Followed in short order is a police car—"Glurp." As more vehicles come to the rescue ("Blurp," "Flurp," "Plurp"), they all succumb to the muddy, sticky gunk and stuck they stay, but before the young reader can despair, it's "preschool to the rescue!" The perspective suddenly widens, and the viewer sees that the vehicles are toys. As they rush onto the schoolyard, each lively preschool animal is armed with a shovel or a Popsicle stick and they go to work extricating the little trucks. Once they have done that, they utterly vanquish the mud puddle by fashioning it into pies, pizzas, and cookies, getting wonderfully grubby in the process. Sierra (The Gift of the Crocodile, 2000, etc.) tells her chirpy story in repetitive prose as the puddle victims accumulate. Hillenbrand's (Kiss the Cow, 2000, etc.) illustrations are double-paged delights. The mud puddle is not merely brown, but illuminated by subtle hues of purple, blue, pink, green, turquoise, red, and orange while still retaining its essential muckiness (and two eyes and a nose). The preschoolers dressed in ultra-bright rain gear make it clear that a little mud never hurt anyone—in fact, it might even add to the fun. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-202035-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gulliver/Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
Arrr, ’tis a seaworthy tale, so set your compass toward fulfilling your dreams, and she’ll not steer you wrong.
A simple ship yields a (relatively) big adventure in this classically told tale.
In a little cabin on a little lake, there lives a mouse named Mabel, a boy, and a man. The man constructs a very special model ship. “He wouldn’t even let the boy help.” Every night when she looks at it, Mabel wonders if the ship is seaworthy. She lets herself dream of piloting it through seas both rough and calm, “free and full of wonder.” When an opportunity presents itself, Mabel hesitates but reasons that the chance may never come again. Readers will be relieved to find that the ship does indeed float, but when the ship meets with tragedy, both Mabel and the man will need to find a solution. Jonker cleverly juxtaposes the mouse’s character arc alongside that of the grown man. Whereas Mabel must summon the courage to live her dreams, the man must overcome his fear of letting other people help him with his own. Cordell, meanwhile, outlines panels with rope, then fills his images to the brim with a busy cross-hatching technique that gives the book a timeless feel. Both boy and man in the book have light-brown skin.
Arrr, ’tis a seaworthy tale, so set your compass toward fulfilling your dreams, and she’ll not steer you wrong. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593350577
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
A strong series start.
In a video game, a superpowered rabbit must rescue a singing dog that brings everyone happiness.
In the frame story, a brown-skinned human protagonist plays a video game on a handheld console evocative of the classic Nintendo Gameboy. The bulk of the book relates the game’s storyline: Animal Town is a peaceful place where everyone is delighted by Singing Dog, until the fun-hating King Viking (whose black-mustachioed, pink-skinned looks reference the Super Mario Brothers game series villain, Wario) uses his army of robots to abduct Singing Dog. To save Singing Dog—and fun—the animals send the fastest among them, Simon the Hedgehog, to get Super Rabbit Boy (who gains speed and jumping powers by eating special carrots) to save the day. The chapters take Super Rabbit Boy through video game levels, with classic, video game–style settings and enemies. Throughout the book, when the game’s player loses either a life in the game or the game entirely, the unnamed kid must choose to persevere and not give up. The storylines are differentiated by colorful art styles—cartoonish for the real world, 8-bit pixel-sprite–style for the game. The fast, repetitive plot uses basic, simple sentences and child-friendly objects of interest, such as lakes of lava, for children working on reading independence, while the nerdy in-jokes benefit adults reading with a child.
A strong series start. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-03472-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Branches/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
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