In this Easy-to-Read entry, Dog and Cat (Dog and Cat Shake a Leg, 1996, etc.) know how to have fun. They know how to make friends. They know how to splash, find good stuff at a tag sale, fix up a birthday boat, balance a bone on a nose, and pull a carrot out of a hat at their very own magic show. These amiable characters, whose individual personalities are somewhat indistinguishable, do nothing uproarious—rather, they revel in the ordinary joys of friendship, moving through four brief episodes that function more as vignettes than adventures. Three of the stories feature swimming, birthdays, and magic shows, familiar topics for this audience, but without any new spin. A fourth, ``The Tag Sale,'' shines: Only in the potential loss of Dog's books, chair, or guitar that he's given to a yard sale does he recognize their true value. Spohn's trademark simplicity is evident in the contained pen-and-ink drawings, suitable for providing picture clues for beginning readers, but lacking the zing of James Marshall's Fox books, or even of the previous book about Dog and Cat. (Fiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-87178-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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