An entertaining choice for parents wanting to introduce favorite bands to their lap readers.
A beetle finds his life forever changed in this sendup of classic rock with an insect spin by a singer/songwriter and debut children’s book author.
Tiger beetle John, whose signature glasses evoke John Lennon, and his pal Paul are hunting sand flies and gnats one day when they discover a rock group playing at the nearby pier. Perching on one of the band member’s Hawaiian shirts to get a closer look, John accidentally becomes part of the act when he falls into a guitar and can’t get out. At first, the loud music is torturous, but soon John enjoys how the vibrations course through his elytra wings. The final number, “Good Vibrations,” makes the crowd go wild; John notices “their smiling faces and happy eyes and could see how much they enjoyed the band performance and the music.” This inspires him to set up his own group with Paul, Paul’s friend George, and drummer Buggy Bingo. Later, John marries a Japanese beetle named Yoko, and he says his whole life of celebrity is due to hearing the legendary band that parents should already have recognized: the Beach Boys. Each page of text is framed by the same image involving the pier concert—John peering out of the acoustic guitar—which reduces the impact of that picture. Still, on the whole, the buggy musicians are charmingly illustrated in a cartoon style that should appeal to young readers. The Beatles references in the art (and text) are cute and clever. While the uncredited images lack sophistication, they work for the tone of the story. But there are no conflicts in Funcell’s tale, making it a bit light on plot: the work focuses on a revelatory moment rather than a challenge. And the beetles seem to have an incomplete knowledge of humans, identifying a Hawaiian shirt but not a guitar (“I found out later this wooden box is called a guitar,” John confesses). Although the details may falter, the fun here is in the rock mashup.
An entertaining choice for parents wanting to introduce favorite bands to their lap readers.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4808-3793-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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