Another way to banish imagination’s monsters, as well as being great fun to read, alone or aloud—with, of course,...
Large monsters are hungry for little monsters when they wake from their snoozes…but one little monster has a clever plan to scare them off.
Big, winding ribbons of ZZZZZZZs and alliterative foolery take center stage here as, armed with a microphone and recording device, a diminutive green fuzzball creeps past a series of much larger sleeping monsters. “First is Norris. He has a monster cold. While he sleeps, his tiny toothypegs chitter and chatter and his knobbly knees knock.” Other nappers “jibber-jabber,” “tippy-tap” with “terribly tatty toenails,” or issue alimentary “gurgles and growls” as they saw away. And so, when the sleepers at last wake and cast about for a snack, it’s their own noises, fed back at HIGH VOLUME, that put them to flight and allow the tiny trickster to bed down peacefully in a comfy shoe. Depicted in scribbles and scrabbles and appropriately loud colors, Hodgkinson’s collage monsters look like huge, comical cousins to Ed Emberley’s Big Green anxiety-banisher.
Another way to banish imagination’s monsters, as well as being great fun to read, alone or aloud—with, of course, exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8660-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, springtime-themed reworking of a beloved tale.
The classic picture book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989) gets a makeover for Easter as the letters of the alphabet locate and decorate eggs.
The mission is simple: “Chicka chicka peek peek. / Everybody seek seek! / Find all the eggs / in the pretty pink tree.” The letters are making their way up the flowering tree in search of the hidden eggs when a “SNEEZE!” scatters everyone and the eggs fall and crack. Luckily, a bunny hops by with a haul of new ones, which the letters then paint and bedazzle, eventually sharing the newly decorated eggs with a group of bunnies. This picture book is a successfully Easter-fied version of the original: The letters go up; the letters fall down. Truly, though, that’s all the preschool crowd needs. Chung’s illustrations are simple and familiar, a direct echo of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The letters appear in colorful, bold, block form. The book has few added details, just focal images like the tree and its pink flowers, the colorful eggs, tufts of grass, and some friendly rabbits. The alphabet appears in order (both upper- and lowercase letters) at the book’s open and close. The rhyming text follows the iconic cadence of the source material, making for a worthy read-aloud that will keep little hands turning pages.
A sweet, springtime-themed reworking of a beloved tale. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781665990646
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat.
Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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