Plainly unable to stay out of mischief for long, Stanley and his canine buddies embark on a third escapade after Stanley’s Party (2003) and Stanley’s Wild Ride (2006)—this one with cosmic overtones. Slouching away from his picnicking human family, Stanley joins Nutsy, Alice and Gassy Jack in sniffing out an unattended ham sandwich. They find it in a small rowboat that proceeds to carry them down the river and out onto the scary sea. Could they be on their way to the end of Outside? What will they find there? A fence, undoubtedly, because “sooner or later you always come to a fence.” Once again, Bailey endows her characters with believably doggy thought processes, and the pop-eyed, floppy-eared figures in Slavin’s textured paint-on-gesso scenes positively exude enthusiasm, if not intelligence. Soon a “fence” looms up, in the form of a freighter’s towering hull; the dogs are rescued, fed steak and sausage until they can barely move and then rowed back to land. The tale of how they found pooch paradise quickly becomes a legend throughout dogdom: “No dog has ever found that fence,” Bailey concludes, “but they think about it all the time.” The spiritual metaphor may need some explaining to children, but Stanley’s waggish appeal will win over readers young or grown. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-55453-193-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
With wordplay reminiscent of Margie Palatini at her best, Helakoski takes four timorous chickens into, then out of, the literal and figurative woods. Fleeing the henhouse after catching sight of a wolf, the pusillanimous pullets come to a deep ditch: “ ‘What if we can’t jump that far?’ ‘What if we fall in the ditch?’ ‘What if we get sucked into the mud?’ The chickens tutted, putted, and flutted. They butted into themselves and each other, until one by one . . . ” they do fall in. But then they pick themselves up and struggle out. Ensuing encounters with cows and a lake furnish similar responses and outcomes; ultimately they tumble into the wolf’s very cave, where they “picked, pecked, and pocked. They ruffled, puffled, and shuffled. They shrieked, squeaked, and freaked, until . . . ” their nemesis scampers away in panic. Fluttering about in pop-eyed terror, the portly, partly clothed hens make comical figures in Cole’s sunny cartoons (as does the flummoxed wolf)—but the genuine triumph in their final strut—“ ‘I am a big, brave chicken,’ said one chicken. ‘Ohh . . . ’ said the others. ‘Me too.’ ‘Me three.’ ‘Me four’ ”—brings this tribute to chicken power to a rousing close. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-47575-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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