An enjoyably spooky outing starring a team of diminutive, endlessly inventive veggies.
Baker’s lively legumes return for a Halloween adventure.
In lightly rhyming text, an unseen narrator proposes costume ideas: “A wicked witch with a pointy hat, / a ghost, / a goblin, / or the witch’s cat? / A skeleton with a cane to tap. / Or a flying, flapping, vampire bat!” The suggestions continue, riffing on classic monsters, children’s stories like Peter Pan, and fairy-tale characters such as Rapunzel and Goldilocks. The peas could dress up as animals, Albert Einstein, or “a centipede with fifty friends— // that’s a hundred feet from end to end!” On several spreads, the peas are dwarfed by large-scale lettered phrases like “October 31.” Using ladders, they carve hulking pumpkins with saws, relying on slings and ropes to remove pulp and carrying seeds and harvested chunks away in wheelbarrows. Baker uses the peas’ roundness to their advantage when outfitting them in costumes; one masquerades as an “evil blue” eyeball, others as the planets Earth and Saturn. Many don headgear like flower bonnets or the Statue of Liberty’s crown. A poignant bit of text also gently suggests that eschewing costumes is just fine, too: “Or be yourself… // a little green pea!” Jack-o’-lanterns glow yellow and orange against dark blue-violet spreads as the costumed, treat-seeking peas hit the neighborhood on Halloween night.
An enjoyably spooky outing starring a team of diminutive, endlessly inventive veggies. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781665940269
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
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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BOOK REVIEW
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Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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