Invites universal participatory tickling—it’s hard to resist joining in.
A mouse wants to join the Tickle Squad but first must prove that its skills are up to snuff.
As two lab-coated rodents carefully look on (this is serious, scientific observation, after all), one tiny mouse tickles all kinds of creatures hoping to trigger a guffaw. Tickling a giraffe is easy; just run up and down those long legs. Tickling a bear requires a bit more caution, but it’s fun when they start to wriggle and giggle. Tickling an octopus, however, can be quite tricky, as the tickler-in-training wonders: “An octopus loves to be tickled for sure, / but which was the arm that I tickled before?” Written in jumpy verse with rhymes that sometimes carry over into the speech-bubble comments of the scientists, the rhythm itself is ticklish and fun. Comically large, round ears make the tiny mice easy to spot, and various bodily functions triggered by the tickling are sure to elicit giggles. Alas, some of the animals’ laughing expressions can be difficult to interpret: scrunched eyes and wide mouths with sharp teeth don’t always look very jolly.
Invites universal participatory tickling—it’s hard to resist joining in. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5124-8126-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Andersen Press USA
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
Schwarz’s follow-up to the well-received, interactive There Are Cats in this Book (2008) falls short of the mark. Tiny, Moonpie and André are back, but from the get-go, they’re packed and itching to escape the narrative’s confines to “see the world.” They try pushing, jumping and wishing themselves out, with corresponding interactive pages that fold out, pop up and invite readers—addressed throughout—to help wish the feline trio “out into the world.” Three ensuing double-page spreads—nearly a quarter of the volume—depict, against dingy white space, respectively: pale spangles of dematerializing-cat-shaped stars, a small, attached postcard to the reader and a word-bubble: “Meow.” That alluring world appears only as a brick-walled alley on the postcard. The slight story arc and all those nearly-blank spreads undercut the momentum—a shame, given the illustrator's vibrant way with brush and ink. The final two spreads deliver a passel of cats into the mix—“They all wanted to meet you!”—but it’s too little, too late for readers, who are much easier to spring from books than cats. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4954-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rohmann sets a short lullaby from an early-20th-century poet and printer to brushy watercolor scenes of a family of lightly anthropomorphized, bright-eyed squirrels frisking about a grassy, sunlit glade before returning to their cozy nest to sleep. Because the text is so brief that many spreads have just a single word—or none at all—this reads like a short film captured on paper, its pacing governed by the timing of page turns. The poem may be brief, but Guthrie’s language is simply gorgeous: “To the milk-white / Silk-white / Lily-white star, / A fond goodnight / Wherever you are.” The book’s wee trim—it’s a snug seven-by-seven–inch square—emphasizes the intimacy of both words and art. The illustrator has done this sort of thing before, of course, most notably in his Caldecott-winning My Friend Rabbit (2002); here the art is lighter in line and color but just as joyful. A die-cut front cover provides an inviting gateway to an idyll that will tempt viewers to linger. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-508-7
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
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