by Margaret Mahy & illustrated by Polly Dunbar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 23, 2012
Wonderfully exuberant and completely delightful.
There’s fun for all when the man from Fandango comes to call.
An unnamed and silent boy and girl paint a colorful figure that jumps right off the paper, bringing excitement, happy games and music. He cavorts and flies and dances with a bear and a bison, while a baboon plays a bassoon accompaniment. A frolicsome kangaroo and a dinosaur join in the rumpus along with the ecstatic children. The action races along at a breathless pace as words both real and created sing the rhymed tale that “bingles and bangles and bounces,” as they all “tingle and tongle and tangle.” The text winds and moves in arcs across the pages in the very aptly named Heatwave typeface. Watercolor-and-collage illustrations work with the shaped text, curving and swirling in hills and valleys. Every animal and human is joyful and fully engaged in the moment. The bison sports red high-fashion shoes, and there are bubbles and stars and all sorts of brightly hued shapes flying about, along with the magical man who dances and juggles without reference to gravity. The late Mahy's New Zealand syntax and humor are on fine display here, and young readers will wish that the Fandango man would appear more than once in 500 years.
Wonderfully exuberant and completely delightful. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-81988-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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by Lisa Robinson ; illustrated by Lucy Fleming ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 8, 2019
A delicious triumph over fear of night creatures.
Pippa conquers a fear of the creatures that emerge from her storybooks at night.
Pippa’s “wonderfully wild imagination” can sometimes run “a little TOO wild.” During the day, she wears her “armor” and is a force to be reckoned with. But in bed at night, Pippa worries about “villains and monsters and beasts.” Sharp-toothed and -taloned shadows, dragons, and pirates emerge from her storybooks like genies from a bottle, just to scare her. Pippa flees to her parents’ room only to be brought back time and again. Finally, Pippa decides that she “needs a plan” to “get rid of them once and for all.” She decides to slip a written invitation into every book, and that night, they all come out. She tries subduing them with a lasso, an eye patch, and a sombrero, but she is defeated. Next, she tries “sashes and sequins and bows,” throwing the fashion pieces on the monsters, who…“begin to pose and primp and preen.” After that success, their fashion show becomes a nightly ritual. Clever Pippa’s transformation from scared victim of her own imagination to leader of the monster pack feels fairly sudden, but it’s satisfying nonetheless. The cartoony illustrations effectively use dynamic strokes, shadow, and light to capture action on the page and the feeling of Pippa's fears taking over her real space. Pippa and her parents are brown-skinned with curls of various textures.
A delicious triumph over fear of night creatures. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-9300-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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by Lisa Robinson ; illustrated by Hadley Hooper
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by Lisa Robinson ; illustrated by Lauren Simkin Berke
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by Lisa Robinson ; illustrated by Rebecca Green
by Jordan Quinn ; illustrated by Robert McPhillips ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2014
A gentle adventure that sets the stage for future quests.
A lonely prince gains a friend for a quest to find a missing jewel.
Prince Lucas of Wrenly has everything a boy could possibly want—except a friend. His father has forbidden him to play with the village children for reasons of propriety. Adventure-seeking Lucas acquires peasant clothes to masquerade as a commoner and make friends, but he is caught out. His mother, the queen, persuades the king to allow him one friend: Clara, the daughter of her personal dressmaker. When the queen’s prized emerald pendant goes missing, Lucas and Clara set off to find it. They follow the jewel as it changes hands, interviewing each temporary owner. Their adventure cleverly introduces the series’ world and peoples, taking the children to the fairy island of Primlox, the trolls’ home of Burth, the wizard island of Hobsgrove and finally Mermaid’s Cove. By befriending the mermaids, Lucas and Clara finally recover the jewel. In thanks, the king gives Clara a horse of her own so that she may ride with Lucas on their future adventures. The third-person narration is generally unobtrusive, allowing the characters to take center stage. The charming, medieval-flavored illustrations set the fairy-tale scene and take up enough page space that new and reluctant readers won’t be overwhelmed by text.
A gentle adventure that sets the stage for future quests. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-9691-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
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by Jordan Quinn ; illustrated by Glass House Graphics
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