Dylan may have his flaws, but he does his name proud.
Dylan Snivels wants to make a name for himself.
Many kids would find being called Dylan the Villain a source of distress. But Dylan Snivels considers the nickname a badge of honor. Born with a mask over his eyes and a wicked smile, he attends Astrid Rancid’s Academy for the Villainous & Vile—a school with a refreshingly honest name. His parents are always assuring him that he’s “the very best and cleverest super-villain in the whole wide world!” But he has competition: Addison Van Malice’s evil laugh is 10 times crazier than his, and her robot might win the diabolical-robot contest. (It has a freeze ray and a shrink ray.) The battle ends on a cliffhanger, which is fitting for a superhero story but a little anticlimactic in a picture book. Campbell paints great Rube Goldberg–style devices, though, and the book is sprinkled with terrific jokes. The funniest passage will comfort a lot of parents: “super-villain babies are much like any others. They don’t like bedtime. They throw their food.” The story feels slight, but the details are clever enough to make it worth reading: students wear hats shaped like shark fins and land mines, for instance. Dylan and Addison are both white, but Astrid Rancid’s has a few students of color (Principal Sinister is a green, warty monster).
Dylan may have his flaws, but he does his name proud. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-47642-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rollicking tale of rivalry.
Sweet Street had just one baker, Monsieur Oliphant, until two new confectionists move in, bringing a sugar rush of competition and customers.
First comes “Cookie Concocter par excellence” Mademoiselle Fee and then a pie maker, who opens “the divine Patisserie Clotilde!” With each new arrival to Sweet Street, rivalries mount and lines of hungry treat lovers lengthen. Children will delight in thinking about an abundance of gingerbread cookies, teetering, towering cakes, and blackbird pies. Wonderfully eccentric line-and-watercolor illustrations (with whites and marbled pastels like frosting) appeal too. Fine linework lends specificity to an off-kilter world in which buildings tilt at wacky angles and odd-looking (exclusively pale) people walk about, their pantaloons, ruffles, long torsos, and twiglike arms, legs, and fingers distinguishing them as wonderfully idiosyncratic. Rotund Monsieur Oliphant’s periwinkle complexion, flapping ears, and elongated nose make him look remarkably like an elephant while the women confectionists appear clownlike, with exaggerated lips, extravagantly lashed eyes, and voluminous clothes. French idioms surface intermittently, adding a certain je ne sais quoi. Embedded rhymes contribute to a bouncing, playful narrative too: “He layered them and cherried them and married people on them.” Tension builds as the cul de sac grows more congested with sweet-makers, competition, frustration, and customers. When the inevitable, fantastically messy food fight occurs, an observant child finds a sweet solution amid the delicious detritus.
A rollicking tale of rivalry. (Picture book. 4-8 )Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-101-91885-2
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
