Raucous storytime fun.
A cloven-hoofed librarian can’t be too bad…right?
A pinkish-purple-haired, blue-lidded alpaca has suddenly and inexplicably taken over the library. Alpacas may be soft and cuddly, but as the narrator (and title) warns, “Alpacas make TERRIBLE librarians!” They make distracting sounds, and their angry noises (“AHHH HEEE HAWWW HEEE”) are even louder than their calm ones (“Cluck cluck cluck cluck hum hum hum hum”). Alpacas love to host storytime outside (“If there’s one thing this librarian loves, it’s grass”), but if you need to use the bathroom once you’re out there, the alpaca will direct you to the “communal dung pile.” Most importantly, don’t try to check out a book about a llama—the alpaca will get very upset, and a slobbery reprimand might come flying your way. Packed with alpaca facts, the cheeky narrative might also start a discussion on censorship with young readers (the alpaca tosses out all books about other animals). Bright illustrations and energetic text placement, with tilted angles and bold-faced words, add to the chaos the alpaca brings. The younger, human library enthusiasts are a diverse bunch.
Raucous storytime fun. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781957655284
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gnome Road Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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