A bland if pretty treatment for adults who feel their children are not ready for the original.
Paired to creamy, surreal illustrations, an abbreviated and retold account of Alice’s sojourn from her encounter with the Cheshire Cat on in this sequel to Alice in Wonderland: Down the Rabbit Hole (2015).
The general plotline remains intact, though along with leaving out the Mock Turtle, the Lobster Quadrille, nearly all of the poetry, and much else, Rhatigan and Nurnberg modernize and retune the language as well. Alice is first offered “juice” rather than wine at the tea party, and later, seeing that she refuses to have her head cut off, the Queen says “Well, okay. Can you play croquet?” Puybaret fills in a few of the missing details (putting gardeners painting white roses red in one scene’s background, for instance) but focuses mainly on creating spacious, neatly composed tableaux in harmonious colors. These feature exotic flora, animals in stylish court dress, and (mostly) light-skinned human figures with long pointy noses and glassy eyes. Alice, a blonde, white beauty in a flowing green skirt, wakes at last and is last seen skipping home, heedless of the white rabbit and other previously met characters looking on. The adapters’ retelling of co-published The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Adventures, illustrated by Debra Bandelin and Bob Dacey, is similarly abbreviated though not quite so colloquial.
A bland if pretty treatment for adults who feel their children are not ready for the original. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63322-110-9
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Moondance/Quarto
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series.
When Dr. Bunsen, Gabe, Laura, and Cesar's mad-scientist neighbor, tries out his growth machine on Gabe's plastic animal toys, there's an unexpected result—they come to life.
Second-grade whiz kids Gabriel Martinez, Laura Reyes, and Cesar Moreno meet their strange neighbor while fundraising for a science-club field trip. Known to their classmates as “the Data Set,” they each have individual passions: Gabe loves animals; Laura loves to tinker and invent; Cesar loves to read and eat. There’s room for all these activities in their well-equipped treehouse. Together, their fantastic adventures will be the stuff of four titles scheduled for 2016 and aimed directly at first- and second-graders already devouring books. This episode introduces the characters, sets up the problem (the cute but rapidly growing baby animals), and finds a solution (sneak them into the zoo) in 126 fast-paced pages written with plenty of dialogue and copiously illustrated with appealing drawings. With these Latino protagonists—Cesar has dark skin and curly hair, while Laura and Gabe have lighter skin and straight hair—and a STEM-infused plot, this would seem to have been made to order for today’s elementary school students. While the emphasis is far more on plot than STEM, the kid-friendly fantasy should captivate readers, who will certainly want to gobble up the next installment. (Tantalizingly, the opening pages are included.)
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series. (Adventure. 5-8)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5729-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
As Captain Awesome would say, this kid is “MI-TEE!” (Fiction. 5-8)
The town of Sunnyview got a little bit safer when 8-year-old Eugene McGillicudy moved in.
Just like his comic-book mentor, Super Dude, Eugene, aka Captain Awesome, is on a one-man mission is to save the world from supervillains, like the nefarious “Queen Stinkypants from Planet Baby.” Just as Eugene suspected, plenty of new supervillains await him at Sunnyview Elementary. Are Meredith Mooney and the mind-reading Ms. Beasley secretly working together to try and force Eugene to reveal his secret identity? Will Principal Brick Foot succeed in throwing Captain Awesome into the “Dungeon of Detention?” Fortunately, Eugene isn’t forced to go it alone. Charlie Thomas Jones, fellow comic-book lover and Super Dude fan, stands ready and willing to help. When the class hamster goes missing, Captain Awesome must don his cape and, with the help of his new best friend, ride to the rescue. Kirby’s funny and engaging third-person narration and O’Connor’s hilarious illustrations make the book easily accessible and enormously appealing, particularly to readers who have recently graduated to chapter books. But it is the quirky, mischievous Eugene that really makes this book special. His energy and humor are contagious, and his dogged commitment to his superhero alter ego is enough to make anyone a believer.
As Captain Awesome would say, this kid is “MI-TEE!” (Fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4090-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
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