Though he doesn’t retreat so far into the Id as Max in his wolf suit, here’s a lad who wakes surrounded by live zoo animals (plush, in the pictures), tiptoes past sleeping “giants” and rappels down a stepped “mountain” to get to the kitchen, confronts a voracious, sucking monster in the utility closet, then goes on to further adventures indoors and out before one of those “giants” snags him for a bath, a cuddle, and a nap. Muñoz dresses the shock-headed narrator in sagging PJs, and places him in recognizable surroundings, to which suggestive shadows or items have been added to evoke his inner exploits. Ashman captures the nonstop action in rollicking rhyme: “I cross a jungle, leap a lake, / wrestle with a spitting snake, / trek through desert, / crawl through caves, / sail a boat through tidal waves.” Even children well aware of the pleasures of Pretend will trail along admiringly in the wake of this very Young Indiana Jones. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-029053-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An impending school visit by a celebrity chef sends budding cook Ollie into a tailspin. He and his classmates are supposed to bring a favorite family food for show and tell, but his family doesn’t have a clear choice—besides, his little sister Rosy doesn’t like much of anything. What to do? As in their previous two visits to Room 75, Kenah builds suspense while keeping the tone light, and Carter adds both bright notes of color and familiar home and school settings in her cartoon illustrations. Eventually, Ollie winkles favorite ingredients out of his clan, which he combines into a mac-and-cheese casserole with a face on top that draws delighted praise from the class’s renowned guest. As Ollie seems to do his kitchen work without parental assistance, a cautionary tip or two (and maybe a recipe) might not have gone amiss here, but the episode’s mouthwatering climax and resolution will guarantee smiles of contentment all around. (Easy reader. 6-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-053561-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up.
Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields.
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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