A (mostly) heartwarming follow-up visit.
In this wordless picture book, Frazee’s lonely farmer hosts another visitor from the train on the horizon.
The elderly White gent first met in The Farmer and the Clown (2014) walks home from a picnic, looking rather down, unaware he is being followed by a small monkey in a red fez and yellow frill around its neck. As he settles into his empty house, he notices the smiling monkey at the window. He lets the monkey in the front door, but after a dizzying spread depicting the monkey running amok, the farmer sends the monkey out. The frowning monkey spends the night outside as snow begins to fall. The farmer awakes to deep snow and immediately goes out to rescue the monkey. After a warm fire, soup, a story, and falling asleep on the farmer’s shoulder, the monkey spends two nights at the farmer’s house; on the day in between, the farmer and his animals tolerate the monkey’s loud, wild ways. Finally, like the clown in the book before him, the monkey hears the circus train coming and goes on its way, smiles all around. Frazee’s soft colors, careful lines, and masterful compositions work their magic once again to evoke mood and feeling in a way that children can immediately grasp. The experience hits adult readers just as powerfully, though readers who decry picture-book depictions of monkeys for reinforcing negative stereotypes of Black people will find no mitigation in the monkey’s antics. (This book was reviewed digitally with 8.3-by-20.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 54.1% of actual size.)
A (mostly) heartwarming follow-up visit. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4619-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Extraordinary introductory terror, beautiful to the eye and sure to delight younger horror enthusiasts.
What terrors lurk within your mouth? Jasper Rabbit knows.
“You have stumbled your way into the unknown.” The young bunny introduced in Reynolds and Brown’s Caldecott Honor–winning picture book, Creepy Carrots (2012), takes up Rod Serling’s mantle, and the fit is perfect. Mimicking an episode of The Twilight Zone, the book follows Charlie Marmot, an average kid with a penchant for the strange and unusual. He’s pleased when his tonsils become infected; maybe once they’re out he can take them to school for show and tell! That’s when bizarre things start to happen: Noises in the night. Slimy trails on his bedroom floor. And when Charlie goes in for his surgery, he’s told that the tonsils have disappeared from his throat; clearly something sinister is afoot. Those not yet ready for Goosebumps levels of horror will find this a welcome starter pack. Reynolds has perfected the tension he employed in his Creepy Tales! series, and partner in crime Brown imbues each illustration with both humor and a delicate undercurrent of dark foreshadowing. While the fleshy pink tonsils—the sole spot of color in this black-and-white world—aren’t outrageously gross, there’s something distinctly disgusting about them. And though the book stars cute, furry woodland creatures, the spooky surprise ending is 100% otherworldly—a marvelous moment of twisted logic.
Extraordinary introductory terror, beautiful to the eye and sure to delight younger horror enthusiasts. (Early chapter book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781665961080
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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