With a little more chaos and a little less nostalgia, this could have been an arrr-guably great book.
Like a block party but with significantly more eye patches.
When preparing to host the scurviest knaves ever to sail the seven seas, snacks are a must. It’s summertime, and all the neighborhood kids are playing pirate. There are the Johnson brothers (Bluebeard, Blackbeard, and Beigebeard), Sharktooth Jane, Eye Patch Sue, Cap’n Gunderboon, and party host Peg Leg Jones. Soon he’s been boarded, and his guests are plundering his chest, shooting missiles, and causing general havoc. Their behavior does not go unnoticed, however, and soon, Peg Leg’s mom sails over to enforce some cleanliness. The art seamlessly melts from reality to fantasy, showing keen holes in the latter when things get a bit wild at the jamboree, revealing the ship to be a bed and the treasure to be toys. As in a William Joyce book, Teague sets his tale in a distinctly idealized, if not downright archaic, suburbia. Beneath the piratical veneer, a man in a suit glares disapprovingly as he heads off to work, and a broom-wielding mom in an apron tells the children to clean their rooms. There’s some racial diversity (the Johnson brothers are black), but for the most part it’s a throwback title thrown a little too far back.
With a little more chaos and a little less nostalgia, this could have been an arrr-guably great book. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-63221-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An innocuous telling, sure to slip in effortlessly with other firetruck books.
A little fire engine discovers what it’s good at by eliminating what it is not.
Who knew disappointment could be such a keen teaching tool? Narrator Flash is eager to demonstrate firefighting prowess, but every attempt to “save the day” yields bubkes. First Flash is too little to handle a fire at the airport (Crash, an airport crash tender, handles that one). Next Flash is too short to help a tall building that’s on fire (that honor goes to Laddie, a turntable ladder). Finally, an airplane and a foam tender together solve a forest-fire problem. Only when a bridge is suddenly blocked by snow, with all the other trucks on the wrong side of it, does Flash have the opportunity to save a pet shelter that’s ablaze. (Readers will note characters in shirtsleeves at the beginning of the book, so this is a very unexpected snowstorm.) Calvert deftly finds a new way to introduce kids to different kinds of firefighting vehicles by setting up Flash in opposition to situations where it’s just not the best truck for the job. The anthropomorphized engines and planes irritatingly include unnecessary eyelashes on trucks with feminine pronouns, but this is mitigated by the fact that the girls get cool names like “Crash” and save the day first. Enthusiastic if unremarkable digital art presents both firefighters and citizens in an array of genders and races.
An innocuous telling, sure to slip in effortlessly with other firetruck books. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-4178-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pizza, snow, and a talking pig: a recipe for storytime fun.
An intrepid pig named Pinky goes off to fetch a pizza during a snowstorm in this silly home-away-home tale.
Pinky is so focused on remembering the toppings his mother requested—“Mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, / Fresh tomatoes, onions, peas”—that he doesn’t realize that he’s been covered in snow after an altercation with the pesky Squirrel boys. He continues to walk through town, covered in snow from head to toe, with only his snout, eyes, and feet visible. Everyone stops and wonders at the walking snowman, but Pinky doesn’t realized they’re gaping at him. Once inside to order the pizza, the cook recognizes him by his snout, and then the snow melts away. On his way home with the pizza, Mr. Mutt tells him about the walking snowman, “and after their delicious lunch, Pinky and Mommy took a stroll into town. They wanted to see the walking snowman too!” Readers who are in on the joke will find humor in this conclusion and in the story as a whole, with its fully realized watercolor, gouache, and ink depictions of a small town populated by anthropomorphic animals.
Pizza, snow, and a talking pig: a recipe for storytime fun. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3654-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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