A terrific pedagogical idea from Leedy (Mission: Addition, 1997, etc.) that offers instruction and no small dose of delight. Lisa’s teacher assigns the middle graders to measure something both in standard units, e.g., inches and teaspoons, and in nonstandard units, e.g., in pencils or toes. Lisa measures her Boston terrier, Penny, discovering that Penny’s ear is one cotton swab long (a basset hound’s is three), and that she can jump as high as Lisa’s waist. Other measurements are given in dog biscuits, centimeters, and the time it takes, for example, to walk Penny or to see her dash from her bed to her dish (six seconds). The illustrations, done in a primitive style with acrylics, offer solid figures and recognizable dog breeds; the design is carefully thought out and very clear. Readers will be inspired to measure their own pets; it will be up to their pets, of course, to cooperate. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-5360-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“ ‘This is the pits!’ / said a mummy one day, / ‘I am bored stiff— / let’s go outside and PLAY!’ ” Ten little mummies venture out of their “dreary old tomb” for a day of heatstroke, sudden winds, and encounters with various predators, all of which whittle their number down one by one. Giving his square-headed, tightly wrapped mummies free limbs, as well as expressive eye and mouth holes, Karas sends them cavorting past dunes and palm trees, sliding down a pyramid and splashing into the Nile. The last, lonely mummy returns to the tomb that night, to find the others awaiting her: “SURPRISE!” Though the clever wordplay vanishes after the opening verses, and aside from a scattering of “Ancient Egyptian Facts” on the endpapers, the setting is by and large generic, mummies are at least as much fun to count as the ghosts, pumpkins, and monsters in other Halloween variations on the old rhyme. And the misadventures here will draw chortles from young readers. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-670-03641-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
Becker taps into a universal experience with this sympathetic look at a child left to wait just a minute while Mom runs a quick side errand. Stranded in a department store basement, Johnny McGuffin waits. And waits. And waits. Minutes pass—or are they hours? Or days? Or years? Or eons? Johnny loses track, seeing seasons change, himself growing up and raising a family, then going old and gray. Bearing a panicky expression, his moon face looms in Davis’s crowded, canted cartoons, as confusions of calendar pages and other signs of change whirl through the background. And, adding insult to injury, Mom reappears at last, makes a breezy apology, then waits impatiently while Johnny learns how to walk again. The illustrations inject more frenetic energy than monotony, but Becker effectively captures Johnny’s disorientation by dropping in and out of rhyme in her brief text. Johnny’s experience will have children, and their parents, nodding in recognition. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-83374-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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