What to do when you haven’t found any friends at your new school and it’s already (gasp!) October? Second-grader Max Pilner thinks he has the answer in David’s (When Second Graders Attack, p. 565, etc.) latest offering. King’s (Enemy Pie, 2000, etc.) vibrant illustrations—which depict Max and his classmates with oversized heads, skinny necks, and wide-set reptilian eyes—are appropriately offbeat, perfect for portraying Max as he makes his transformation into Captain Crusader for the Halloween costume contest at school. “I have many powers. I fight villains and save animals and people from calamitous disasters,” Max tells his classmates, who are dressed as the standard issue cat, witch, and firefighter. Forget about being a superhero—Max’s confident alter ego renders him a super star, and everyone wants to play with him. He even wins the costume contest. But David’s tightly woven text soon reveals a new thread. Max, flush with success, continues to dress up. “That costume’s dirty,” says one child. “Why can’t you be a beetle?” asks another who’s involved in a game of Giant Bug Attack. The rejection is too much for Max; King’s (Enemy Pie, 2000, etc.) full-bleed illustration shows the boy, in tattered costume, wreaking havoc on the playground. In a vignette, opposite, his teacher phones home. Any reader who has ever felt left out will sympathize with poor Max’s predicament. But it’s his unwavering determination and quick thinking that’s inspiring; with his father’s gentle insistence, Max goes to school sans costume and ends up making friends the old-fashioned way—by just being himself. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2002
ISBN: 0-385-32746-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A Cinderella parody features the off-the-wall, whang-dang Texas hyperbole of Ketteman (The Year of No More Corn, 1993, etc.) and the insouciance of Warhola, who proves himself only too capable of creating a fairy godcow; that she's so appealingly whimsical makes it easy to accept the classic tale's inversions. The protagonist is Bubba, appropriately downtrodden and overworked by his wicked stepdaddy and loathsome brothers Dwayne and Milton, who spend their days bossing him around. The other half of the happy couple is Miz Lurleen, who owns ``the biggest spread west of the Brazos.'' She craves male companionship to help her work the place, ``and it wouldn't hurt if he was cute as a cow's ear, either.'' There are no surprises in this version except in the hilarious way the premise plays itself out and in Warhola's delightful visual surprises. When Lurleen tracks the bootless Bubba down, ``Dwayne and Milton and their wicked daddy threw chicken fits.'' Bubba and babe, hair as big as a Texas sun, ride off to a life of happy ranching, and readers will be proud to have been along for the courtship. (Picture book/folklore. 6-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-590-25506-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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