Introduced originally in a 1996 picture book, then a made-for-TV movie, space-station-dwelling preteen Zenon Kar kicks off her chapter-book series with a slangy girl-meets-robodog tale. Live pets aren’t allowed aboard Space Station #9, but the new, improved mechanical Tobo dog is better than a real one; it can fly, spout jokes, and even do homework. Zenon’s friends all rush out and get one, but her frackle-pinching father won’t spring for anything pricier than the dopey, inarticulate Bobo model. What a scorch. Zenon is truly flared up, until her teacher awards everyone, except her, a failing mark for letting their dogs do their homework. When all of the Tobos develop tuton shorts in their flystroms and attack their owners, Bobo doesn’t look so bad—but where has he gone? The characters are as abbreviated as the plot, but Bollen adds comical cartoon illustrations to every page of Zenon’s brisk narrative. A glossary helps readers who’ve been put into a Martian mist by her argot, and by the end she and her metal mutt are reunited. No rocket fuel required for this lighter-than-air vehicle. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-679-89249-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Calamity, a camel with a peevish attitude about her life in a caravan, trades in her heavy packs for a colder climate and skis and soon yearns for her former life. It becomes quite clear that camels were not designed for snowy slopes. When perfection isn’t achieved in Calamity’s new habitat, the old woes inherent in carrying burdens through the desert seem far less tiresome the second time around. It’s a particularly easy lesson, learned without fuss or tension, depicted in Busby’s cartoonish illustrations. Readers will enjoy one go-around, but this story from Simon (see review, above) is probably too one-note and simplistic for repeat readings. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-899607-59-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
Following the success of Taro Gomi’s Everyone Poops (1993, not reviewed), this is a similarly direct picture book from Japan, and more crudely done. Laughing at two children who think he’s wearing a bra, a hefty man explains that it’s only a belt over a tank top, then launches into a brief, patchy question-and-answer that covers the physical development of breasts (in women), nursing—“When a baby grabs hold of the breast and sucks on the nipple (glug glug glug), milk flows from it”—and why most people don’t remember much of their babyhood. The two-color illustrations depict a series of mostly bare-chested men, women, and children, drawn with thick black lines and filled with a garish orange. Enlighten curious children by sharing relevant passages from such guides as Robie Harris’s It’s Perfectly Normal (1994) instead. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-916291-88-X
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
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