Twenty-six monsters, alphabetically arranged, enjoy a day at school in this cheerful offering. “Ann has alligator skin, / Bud grows toadstools on his chin,” Leuck begins. Parkins’s bright, offbeat illustrations, which stand out against a white background, have massive kid-appeal. They also add another dimension to the story. In a double-page spread for the letters K and L, for example, Parkins turns Kendra, whose “tail is spiked and strong” into an ungainly green dino in a frilly tutu. Lucy, whose “tongue is ten feet long,” is an anteater-type creature who uses that appendage to grip a marker for drawing. It’s a stretch to call this an alphabet book, however. Aside from the monsters’ names, there aren’t any other letter/word associations to be made. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-8118-3509-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
Amusing, yes. Useful for reading practice, yes, but not necessarily guaranteed to make new readers the “read-i-est.” (Early...
Elephant and Piggie make an appearance to introduce the first in their new series, an egalitarian introduction to superlatives.
Each one of seven blades of talking grass—of a total of eight—discovers that it is superb at something: it’s tallest, curliest, silliest, and so forth. The humor aims to appeal to a broad spectrum. It is slightly disturbing that one being eaten by purple bugs is proud of being the crunchiest, but that will certainly appeal to a slice of the audience. The eighth blade of grass is grappling with a philosophical identity crisis; its name is Walt, a sly reference to Whitman's Leaves of Grass that will go right over the heads of beginning readers but may amuse astute parents or teachers. Tension builds with the approach of a lawn mower; the blades of grass lose their unique features when they are trimmed to equal heights. Mercifully, they are chopped off right above the eyes and can continue their silly banter. Departing from the image of a Whitman-esque free spirit, Walt now discovers he is the neatest. Lots of speech bubbles, repetition, and clear layout make this entry a useful addition to lessons on adjectives and superlatives while delivering a not-so-subtle message that everyone is good at something. Elephant and Piggie's final assertion that “this book is the FUNNIEST” doesn't necessarily make it so, however.
Amusing, yes. Useful for reading practice, yes, but not necessarily guaranteed to make new readers the “read-i-est.” (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2635-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Not only does Jenkins (Life on Earth, 2002, etc.) again display a genius for creating paper-collage wildlife portraits with astonishingly realistic skin, fur, and feathers, but here on alternate spreads he zooms in for equally lifelike close-ups of ears, eyes, noses, mouths, feet, and tails. Five examples of each organ thrusting in from beyond the pages’ edges for each “What do you do” question precede spreads in which the point of view pulls back to show the whole animal, with a short accompanying caption. Visual surprises abound: a field cricket’s ears are actually on its legs; a horned lizard can (and does, here) squirt blood from its eyes as a defense mechanism; in an ingenious use of page design, a five-lined skink’s breakable tail enters and leaves the center gutter at different points. Capped by a systematic appendix furnishing more, and often arresting, details—“A humpback whale can be 50 feet long and weigh a ton per foot”—this array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 24, 2003
ISBN: 0-618-25628-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2003
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