First U.S. edition of another alliterative tale from the co-creators of Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes (2004). Here, Bashful Bob, abandoned as a baby and raised by a boxer, a beagle and a borzoi, meets Dorinda, dressed in dust mops and dingy dungarees by despicable distant relatives after her parents disappear. Illustrating Bob’s part in browns and Dorinda’s in dusky purple within the same scenes, Petricic displays the duo becoming bosom buddies who, after drawing a delighted crowd by distracting a desperate but basically benign buffalo, are happily reunited with their respective parents. Though Atwood reaches a bit in spots—“Destiny, however distressing, will not defeat me! I defy despair!” declaims Dorinda at one point—her mini-drama offers champion read-aloud potential. So be bold and don’t delay. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59990-004-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Going produce shopping with Freymann and Elffers is more of a casting call than a trip to the supermarket, for they use fruits and vegetables to display a wide range of emotions. Children and their keepers will be astonished to discover how closely the wrinkles, bends, and creases in produce can mimic human feelings. The text is fairly direct, asking questions to make children think about their emotions: “When you’re angry, do you pout? Whine? Cry? Scream? Shout?” The ridges of a red pepper, with eyes of dried peas, convey the pout, while other fruit demonstrate the rest of the query. These full-color photographs communicate most of the information; even preschoolers will be able to tell a happy orange from a glum one, and adults will smile to see an onion crying. The organic qualities of the produce are used to charming advantage, e.g., the bend of a green pepper makes the perfect overbearing profile of a bully, while a hollowed-out orange gives just the right depth to an opened-mouthed howl. Fun, and useful—what child would not be encouraged to talk about being shy when there is a cantaloupe that admits to exactly the same thing? (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-439-10431-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
Although it appears to Herbie the duck that he’s been displaced in the affections of his sidekick Lottie (Lottie’s New Beach Towel, 1998) by Dodo, a new neighbor with an exotic accent, he needn’t fret. Dodo assures him in the end “zat you are ze apple of her eye.” Tall, mauve, elaborately crested, Dodo looks intimidatingly elegant next to Herbie’s dumpy figure in Mathers’ small, delicate paintings, but she puts on no airs, and the newly-minted trio of friends is last seen motoring companionably off to a meal of meatloaf and gingersnaps. A brief, understated take on a common worry—not confined to childhood—with enlivening touches of wit and charm. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-82014-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
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