Both macabre and cheery—a rare treat.
In a watery anatomy lesson, a pirate skeleton gathers up and reconnects its scattered bones.
As it goes, Norman’s rollicking rhymes cleverly incorporate each major bone’s common and formal names: “Collar me a collarbone, / the way-down-where-I-swaller bone, / a handy parrot-hauler bone— / I claim my clavicle.” She tracks her skeletal buccaneer’s sandy-bottom reassembly from skull to “fair phalanges.” Sandwiched between visual keys on the endpapers (in separate pieces in the front and assembled and accoutered in the rear), Kolar scatters simplified but recognizable body parts (plus the requisite peg leg) across sea beds well-populated with colorful tropical fish and other marine denizens. Several of these pitch in to help before the narrative leaves the finished skeleton posing heroically atop a sunken ship with a spyglass clutched in its metacarpals: “There’s treasure to be found here— / I feel it in my bones!” Budding biologists as well as general fans of pirates, poetry, and wordplay will agree—and it makes a fuller (and less freighted) alternative to Bob Barner’s Dem Bones (1996) and other versions of the old teaching spiritual.
Both macabre and cheery—a rare treat. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8841-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Cute and brave—gee, Rot’s spud-tacular!
A “scaredy-spud” puts on his brave face.
All “mutant potatoes” love mud. Mud is good for playing games, eating, and even sleeping. But few taters have more tender feelings toward muck than Rot. À la Pete the Cat, Rot celebrates mud in song: “Mud between my toes! / Mud in my nose! / Mud is GREAT / wherever it GOES!” When Rot’s big brother, Snot, tells Rot about the Squirm that lives “deep down in the mushy muck,” his love quickly turns to fear. But he doesn’t give up! Instead, Rot imagines himself in various disguises to work up courage. There’s “Super Spud” (a superhero), “Sir Super Rot, the Brave and Bold” (a superhero-knight), and even “Sir Super Rot the Pigtato” (a, um, superhero-knight-pig-potato). The disguises are one thing, but, deep down, is Rot really brave enough to face the Squirm? Readers wooed by Rot’s charm in Rot: The Cutest in the World (2017) will laugh out loud at this well-paced encore—and it’s not just because of the butt cracks. Clanton creates a winning dynamic, balancing Rot’s earnestness, witty dialogue, and an omniscient, slightly melodramatic narrator. The cartoon illustrations were created using watercolors, colored pencils, digital collage, and—brilliantly—potato stamps. Clanton’s reliance on earth tones makes for some clever, surprising page turns when the palette is broken.
Cute and brave—gee, Rot’s spud-tacular! (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6764-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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