Young U.S. readers will get the general drift of this import, though more subtle aspects of the Victorian setting and class-conscious subtexts will probably elude them. Because the Queen wears only black and white, Mr. Weatherspoon has decreed that everyone in his household shall do the same. Chafing at this limitation and mad for something pink, little Blanche brings home roses and a colorful dress. After those are instantly discarded, she runs away to help a friendly flower seller. Tending toward several small, crowded scenes per page, the illustrations show the Weatherspoons and their several servants outfitted in stiff, elaborately tucked and ruffled period dress. Everyone’s slightly exaggerated hairdo and expressions lend the episode a faintly farcical air. In the end, Blanche is found and, thanks to the relieved Mr. Weatherspoon, not only is the flower seller happily ensconced in a new shop, but all of the Weatherspoons are soon sporting dainty, nearly invisible dashes of sartorial color. Next to the likes of Emily Jenkins’s Daffodil, illustrated by Tomek Bogacki (2004), this comes off as precious, but there’s a readership for that, too. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: July 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-55005-132-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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