by Keiko Kasza ; illustrated by Keiko Kasza ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2013
Kasza’s lively signature watercolor illustrations are the icing on this brightly colored cake.
Birthdays should be great fun. How awesome will Alligator Al’s be?
Alligator Al’s ready to find himself a big treat for his birthday when there’s a knock at his door. It’s a piglet! What luck! Al snatches the piglet and ties him in a potato sack despite the piggy’s protests that it’s his birthday, too. Al begins preparing to cook up his birthday visitor, but the piglet points out that no birthday’s complete without a birthday cake. Al agrees and follows the piglet’s instructions for making a yummy cake. Then the piglet reminds him awesome guys deserve fancy decorations on their birthdays. Al decorates, and he’s ready to start on his feast when the piglet says there ought to be guests; he offers to call his friends. With visions of a month’s—or a year’s!—worth of piglets, Al eagerly agrees...but piglet’s friends turn out to be a fearsome rhino, hippo, boar and gorilla! Al flees in fright, leaving Piglet and friends to celebrate in style. With this tale of turnabouts, storytime favorite Kasza delivers a sly companion to My Lucky Day (2003), adding a postscript that gives extra insight into the disingenuous porker’s M.O. Audiences of one or many will chortle at the trickery.
Kasza’s lively signature watercolor illustrations are the icing on this brightly colored cake. (Picture book. 2-7)Pub Date: May 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25763-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
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by Adam Wallace ; illustrated by Andy Elkerton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2017
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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by Alice Walstead ; illustrated by Andy Elkerton
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by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2014
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by John Joseph
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