What kid doesn’t want to be spooked on Halloween?
Daphne, dressed as a witch, and younger brother Sam, dressed as a ghost, magically get two tickets to the one-night Heebie-Jeebie Jamboree. The carnival of frights is filled with scary attractions: a rodeo of warlocks bustin’ brooms, a witch’s brew-off, a goblin pie contest and a Rolling Bones concert. When Sam gets lost in the “boo-haha,” the fortune-teller tells Daphne he’s in for a bumpy ride, sending her to the roller coaster. At event after ghoulish event, she just misses Sam, but keen-eyed readers will find him in each scene. She finally finds him in Lost & Found, an upright coffin, where Sam is munching on jelly eyes that he won at the pie contest. Carnival-light–colored illustrations add plenty of icky and ugly details in the background: a merry-go-round of horse skeletons, a tombstone carved with “REST IN PIECES” and lurking black cats. There are never enough Halloween books, and this one has plenty of heebie-jeebies that are tame enough for a reassuring ending.
Anyone for eyes cream or barbecued bat wings? A rollerghoster of fun for younger trick-or-treaters . (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59078-857-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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Little Lobo and his dog, Bernabé, journey through a Mexican mercado delivering diverse goods to a variety of booths.
With the aid of red words splattered throughout the spreads as labels, Raúl the Third gives an introduction to Spanish vocabulary as Little Lobo, an anthropomorphic wolf, leaves his house, fills his cart with objects from his warehouse, and delivers them to the market’s vendors. The journey also serves as a crash course in Mexican culture, as the images are packed with intertextual details such as food, traditional games, and characters, including Cantinflas, Frida Khalo, and Juan Gabriel. Readers acquainted with Raúl the Third’s characters from his Lowriders series with author Cathy Camper will appreciate cameos from familiar characters. As he makes his rounds, Little Lobo also collects different artifacts that people offer in exchange for his deliveries of shoe polish, clothespins, wood, tissue paper, paintbrushes, and a pair of golden laces. Although Raúl the Third departs from the ball-pen illustrations that he is known for, his depiction of creatures and critters peppering the borderland where his stories are set remains in his trademark style. The softer hues in the illustrations (chosen by colorist Bay) keep the busy compositions friendly, and the halftone patterns filling the illustrations create foregrounds and backgrounds reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein’s pointillism.
A culturally intricate slice of a lupine courier’s life. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-55726-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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