Mallat (Brave Bear, 1999) plays with the viewer’s perception of scale in this brief but eventful train ride. “Next stop, Black Paw Crossing!” calls the conductor, and the train chugs off, blowing its whistle as it passes greenery and waving villagers. Suddenly, two huge eyes (one on each of double pages) in an inky black face signal “Trouble on the tracks!” Trouble the cat, that is, who saunters away through the suddenly small trees and houses, leaving the derailed train, now seen to be a model, for its full-sized young “engineer” to put to rights. In magic marker and colored-pencil illustrations, Mallat gives her figurines inconspicuous flat bases from the beginning, a clue that is likely to elude children and adults alike at first pass, despite a heavy hint in the flap copy. Fans of Van Allsburg’s Bad Day at Riverbend (1995) or David Macaulay’s classic Black and White (1990), as well as young trainiacs, will want repeated rides. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8027-8771-1
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
Closing with an intimate snuggle after Papa instantly dozes off, this tender iteration of a familiar nighttime ritual will...
Despite repeated vows to stop interrupting, a little red chicken can’t resist jumping in to cut her Papa’s bedtime tales short with plot giveaways—“DON’T GO IN! SHE’S A WITCH!”—and truncated, happy endings.
Endowing his poultry with flamboyantly oversized combs and wattles, Stein switches between stylish but cozy bedroom scenes and illustrations from each attempted story (into which little red chicken forcibly inserts herself) done in a scribbly, line-and-color style reminiscent of Paul Galdone’s picture-book fairy tales. Having run out of stories, exasperated Papa suggests to little red chicken that she make one up for him, which she does in laborious block print on lined paper, complete with crayoned stick-figure illustrations.
Closing with an intimate snuggle after Papa instantly dozes off, this tender iteration of a familiar nighttime ritual will be equally welcomed by fond parents and those children for whom listening to stories is anything but a passive activity. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4168-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
First-grader Melinda, who lives with her mother, reluctantly says goodbye to a grandmotherly neighbor, Mrs. Wilcox, who's moving to a nursing home. Mrs. Wilcox promises Melinda a surprise in the mailbox every Monday, and her cheerful cards and letters become the eagerly anticipated focus of Melinda's week. Although there is no hint that Mrs. Wilcox is seriously ill, their correspondence is to be short-lived; before Melinda can learn her letters to write back, Mrs. Wilcox dies in her sleep. Grief hurts more than a ``sprained wrist,'' but eventually Melinda hits on a palliativewriting to Mrs. Wilcox's nursing home friend, Mrs. Mingo. Fox's first book is full of good intentions, but the story is glib, and moves awkwardly through some flashbacks and preamble before it is really launched. The pictures have an oversweetened, artificial quality, but Melinda's natural exuberance comes through on every spread. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-8028-5111-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
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