A beautiful and interesting flight of fancy.
A child takes readers along on an Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland–esque adventure.
If you want to ride a dragonfly, first you need to shrink yourself, and the narrator has just the way to manage it…and to become big again, but be careful you don’t miss the sunset deadline or you’ll be tiny forever! Once you’re small, it’s easy to make a grass lasso and capture a dragonfly to ride (Priscilla in this case). Once astride, you can joust against bees with thistle spears, have a tea party with fairies, dodge hungry frogs, rock out with the Beetle Band, and do some acrobatic trick riding, though none of this is without incident (and the scenes with the bee queen and the fairies can seem a bit judgmental and lacking in evidence: “Bees are sore losers”). The child has blond hair, light skin, and a red-and-white polka dot dress, while Priscilla (at least when the child is tiny) sports a blue shirt and red-and-white striped pants. While the child and fauna in the watercolor-and-ink illustrations are cartoony and delightfully anthropomorphized (the Beetle Band and jiving bugs are highlights), the flora at times looks like the stained-glass scenery panels done by Tiffany, especially the water lilies and the cattails, which provides for an interesting contrast and gives the eye a place to rest. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A beautiful and interesting flight of fancy. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-17564-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Random
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
A strong, accessible diary story for readers seeking an adorable animal tale.
Bub the anxious pug tackles snow days and new neighbors in his second outing.
Bub, acclaimed by some as “the cutest pug on the planet,” at first shares the enthusiasm owner Bella expresses about snow days even though he doesn’t know what they are. Then Duchess the cat (mildly antagonistic, in typical feline fashion) rains on Bub’s parade by pointing out that snow is water—and Bub’s no fan of rain or baths. After a comedic and disastrous first attempt, Bub learns how to properly dress for snow and enjoy it. The outdoor fun’s cut short by mysterious noises coming from the new neighbor, which frighten Bella into thinking there’s a monster. Bub puts on a Sherlock Holmes get-up to investigate but becomes afraid himself of the new neighbor’s large dog. Finally, Bella meets Jack, who’s been working on a tree fort, and his dog, Luna, who is enthusiastically friendly. The story ends on a positive note, as they all happily work together on the fort. The full-color cartoon illustrations, especially of Bub, are adorably expressive and certain to please the age group. The generous font and format—short, diary-entry paragraphs and speech-bubble conversations—create a quick pace. Bub’s stylized emoji bubbles return and are most hilarious when used to express his nervous flatulence. Bella and Jack both present white.
A strong, accessible diary story for readers seeking an adorable animal tale. (Fantasy. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-53006-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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