Readers may have to count to 100 to cool their heels waiting for this clever pair’s next adventure.
The adorable mouse best friends are back, brainstorming, problem-solving, and celebrating 100 days of school.
Miss Maxwell’s class pets get in on all the action, writing stories, reporting the weather, and celebrating special days alongside the racially diverse human students. So when the teacher announces a 100th-day party and an assignment to collect and bring in 100 objects, Fergus and Zeke are on it. But do they have 100 of any one thing? Patterning their work on that of their human classmates, they attempt a tower of wood chips…that falls at 47. Zeke’s attempt to run 100 miles on their rodent wheel fails: “One hundred is a very big number when you’re counting miles.” They find the opposite is true when they take a nap of 100 seconds. For their joint 100-word story, author Zeke reaches 100 words just as his character, Fergus, is grabbed by a hungry monster. At the eleventh hour, a misstep by Fergus and some quick thinking by Zeke mean that the two will have a project after all. Messner and Ross again perfectly straddle the line between easy readers and chapter books, with delightful illustrations showing both wide-angle views and the perspective of the tiny mice breaking up the text. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers may have to count to 100 to cool their heels waiting for this clever pair’s next adventure. (Early reader. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1300-3
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A funny and timely primer for budding activists.
Problems are afoot at Emily Dickinson Elementary School, and it’s up to Bea Garcia to gather the troops and fight.
Bea Garcia and her best friend, Judith Einstein, sit every day under the 250-year-old oak tree in their schoolyard and imagine a face in its trunk. They name it “Emily” after their favorite American poet. Bea loves to draw both real and imagined pictures of their favorite place—the squirrels in the tree, the branches that reach for the sky, the view from the canopy even though she’s never climbed that high. Until the day a problem boy does climb that high, pelting the kids with acorns and then getting stuck. Bert causes such a scene that the school board declares Emily a nuisance and decides to chop it down. Bea and Einstein rally their friends with environmental facts, poetry, and artwork to try to convince the adults in their lives to change their minds. Bea must enlist Bert if she wants her plan to succeed. Can she use her imagination and Bert’s love of monsters to get him in line? In Bea’s fourth outing, Zemke gently encourages her protagonist to grow from an artist into an activist. Her energy and passion spill from both her narration and her frequent cartoons, which humorously extend the text. Spanish-speaking Bea’s Latinx, Einstein and Bert present white, and their classmates are diverse.
A funny and timely primer for budding activists. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 6-9)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2941-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look...
Winning actually isn’t everything, as jazz-happy Rooster learns when he goes up against the legendary likes of Mules Davis and Ella Finchgerald at the barnyard talent show.
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look good—particularly after his “ ‘Hen from Ipanema’ [makes] / the barnyard chickies swoon.”—but in the end the competition is just too stiff. No matter: A compliment from cool Mules and the conviction that he still has the world’s best band soon puts the strut back in his stride. Alexander’s versifying isn’t always in tune (“So, he went to see his cousin, / a pianist of great fame…”), and despite his moniker Rooster plays an electric bass in Bower’s canted country scenes. Children are unlikely to get most of the jokes liberally sprinkled through the text, of course, so the adults sharing it with them should be ready to consult the backmatter, which consists of closing notes on jazz’s instruments, history and best-known musicians.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58536-688-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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