Fans of funny animals will find tame humor, vocabulary-building language, and accessible rhymes here.
In Abrams’ illustrated children’s book, a white cat and a dachshund in Tennessee conjure unusual scenarios in brief rhymes.
Silly Cat imagines that he can see across the sea from landlocked Tennessee, and witness wallabies or manatees; he then “rous[es] from his reverie” to see a lizard “lunching on a backyard flea.” In short verse chapters in large type, readers follow Silly and sometimes dachshund Dainty on a series of similar fantasies. Vagreti offers scrupulously lively, dynamic paintings in flat colors, which depict lifelike animals inside and outside Silly’s head, with occasional anthropomorphic expressions on Silly’s face; there are also depictions of unlikely behavior, such as Dainty carrying dishes of ice cream. The situations are lightly amusing throughout, as when Silly pretends to be a stegosaur named Brute who blasts fruit “right out of his snoot,” or sees a bear wearing knight’s armor. The rhyme scheme stays consistently simple—the end words of every line in each stanza rhyme—though Abrams often leaps into more advanced, interesting vocabulary: “My mind went fuzzy with despair, / like sort of dreaming, yet aware.” Wild animals from around the world make occasional incongruous appearances. The humor is that of a pet owner observing a feline’s inscrutable behavior and fondly projecting human emotions onto it; the result is a text for cat lovers from a range of age groups. It will be most appropriate for kids who enjoy funny poems and have learned to read on their own, but who also benefit from plenty of pictures.
Fans of funny animals will find tame humor, vocabulary-building language, and accessible rhymes here.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781628802696
Page Count: 100
Publisher: Ideas into Books WESTVIEW
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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