Mogie’s one good dog, and readers will be awfully glad they’ve met him.
Mogie finds his purpose in this true story about the Houston Ronald McDonald House.
Gage is a “ball-chasing, race-running, back-flipping little boy”…until he gets too sick to do any of those things, and his family flies to a very special house in a Big City. He’s lost his mojo. And there, Mogie, a “ball-chasing, tail-wagging, moon-howling pup” who has failed at training for everything else, wanders in and knows just what to do. He intuits when Gage needs him to sit next to him quietly and when his antics will help him remember and look forward to brighter, healthier days. And slowly, Gage gets better and goes home. Mogie misses Gage, but now he’s watching out for Antonia, “a toe-dancing, jump-roping, cartwheel-spinning girl” who’s lost her cha-cha-cha. “Give this dog a bone and he’ll chew it. Give him a stick and he’ll fetch it. Give him a kiddo who is bluer than blue, and Mogie will be truer than true.” Rosenthal’s pencil, charcoal and digital illustrations wonderfully complement this emotional tale without tipping it into the saccharine. Colors help set the mood of each spread, and the scribbly style against a white background lends the illustrations a slightly retro feel. Wheelchairs and bald heads on a few children are the only indications of illness, aside from subdued posture.
Mogie’s one good dog, and readers will be awfully glad they’ve met him. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8054-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Menacing and most likely to appeal to established fans of its co-creators.
Existing artwork from an artistic giant inspires a fairy-tale reimagination by a master of the horror genre.
In King’s interpretation of a classic Brothers Grimm story, which accompanies set and costume designs that the late Sendak created for a 1997 production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, siblings Hansel and Gretel survive abandonment in the woods and an evil witch’s plot to gobble them up before finding their “happily ever after” alongside their father. Prose with the reassuring cadence of an old-timey tale, paired with Sendak’s instantly recognizable artwork, will lull readers before capitalizing on these creators’ knack for injecting darkness into seemingly safe spaces. Gaping faces loom in crevices of rocks and trees, and a gloomy palette of muted greens and ocher amplify the story’s foreboding tone, while King never sugarcoats the peach-skinned children’s peril. Branches with “clutching fingers” hide “the awful enchanted house” of a “child-stealing witch,” all portrayed in an eclectic mix of spot and full-bleed images. Featuring insults that might strike some as harsh (“idiot,” “fool”), the lengthy, dense text may try young readers’ patience, and the often overwhelmingly ominous mood feels more pitched to adults—particularly those familiar with King and Sendak—but an introduction acknowledges grandparents as a likely audience, and nostalgia may prompt leniency over an occasional disconnect between words and art.
Menacing and most likely to appeal to established fans of its co-creators. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780062644695
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
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