It's likely young readers who pick up this well-made app will be learning about both Bollywood and red pandas for the first...
The adventure of a lost, rare red panda cub trying to find his way home is expertly packed with Indian culture, energetic artwork and engaging characters.
Laloo, who looks more like a fox than a traditional, burly, black-and-white panda, loves bugs, to the puzzlement of those around him. One day, a poacher traps and takes Laloo, but the cub is able to escape. From there, Laloo tries to get back to his family and is aided by a famous dog actor named Scrilla and his friends. The journey is made entertaining by its settings: Laloo crashes the set of a Bollywood movie, runs through a market where the vendors are "selling silk scarves and spicy eggs in sizzling pans," and travels home on a decorated purple train. He also collects bugs he finds along the way; readers tap the bugs to add them to a collection. The text could be cleaner in terms of punctuation and grammar, but the story itself is fun, the narration is sprightly and Laloo's persistent worry that he doesn't fit in is certainly universal. But it's the presentation of life in India that makes the app most worthy of recommendation. The clean, beautifully colored artwork is vibrant and inviting. Laloo's world has lots of characters, perhaps too many for one story. Some barely get a page or two, leaving room for further tales of Laloo and his friends.
It's likely young readers who pick up this well-made app will be learning about both Bollywood and red pandas for the first time—and they will be glad they did. (iPad storybook app. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Laloo LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
What if the market was closed when you wanted to bake a pie? You could embark for Europe, learn Italian en route, and pick up some semolina wheat in Italy, an egg in France, kurundu bark for cinnamon in Sri Lanka, and an entire cow in England (butter) before coming home via Jamaica (sugar) and Vermont (apples). The expertly designed illustrations in which a dark-haired lass journeys by various means to these interesting places to get her groceries are lovely and lively, and the narrative, too, travels at a spritely pace. The journey is neither quite logical enough to be truly informative nor quite bizarre enough to be satisfyingly silly, while the rich, sweet recipe that's appended will take some adult assistance. Still, fun. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-83705-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
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