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HEEBIE-JEEBIE JAMBOREE

Anyone for eyes cream or barbecued bat wings? A rollerghoster of fun for younger trick-or-treaters

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

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TOYS GALORE

Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children...

A fizzy yet revealing romp through the toy world.

Though of standard picture-book size, Stein and illustrator Staake’s latest collaboration (Bugs Galore, 2012, etc.) presents a sweeping compendium of diversions for the young. From fairies and gnomes, race cars and jacks, tin cans and socks, to pots ’n’ pans and a cardboard box, Stein combs the toy kingdom for equally thrilling sources of fun. These light, tightly rhymed quatrains focus nicely on the functions characterizing various objects, such as “Floaty, bubbly, / while-you-wash toys” or “Sharing-secrets- / with-tin-cans toys,” rather than flatly stating their names. Such ambiguity at once offers Staake free artistic rein to depict copious items capable of performing those tasks and provides pre-readers ample freedom to draw from the experiences of their own toy chests as they scan Staake’s vibrant spreads brimming with chunky, digitally rendered objects and children at play. The sense of community and sharing suggested by most of the spreads contributes well to Stein’s ultimate theme, which he frames by asking: “But which toy is / the best toy ever? / The one most fun? / Most cool and clever?” Faced with three concluding pages filled with all sorts of indoor and outside toys to choose from, youngsters may be shocked to learn, on turning to the final spread, that the greatest one of all—“a toy SENSATION!”—proves to be “[y]our very own / imagination.”

Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children everywhere. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-7636-6254-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013

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TOO MUCH GLUE

Great gobs of glue should be more fun than this. (Picture book. 4-7)

Can there be too much glue? Matty’s about to find out.

Matty’s art teacher warns him that too much glue will never dry, but Matty (and his dad) loves glue; they play with it constantly. So Matty finds the “fullest” bottle in the art room and squirts it all over his project. Then he flops down in the middle of the mess…and gets stuck. He’s “a blucky stucky mess!” His friends try to lasso him with yarn and haul him out, but the yarn breaks and gets stuck; now, he’s “a clingy stringy, blucky stucky mess.” A Lego tow truck snaps apart in another rescue attempt, making him a “click-brick, clingy stringy, blucky stucky mess!” When the bell rings, the glue’s dry, and dad must peel gluey Matty off the table. At home, he’s divested of his glue suit, and Dad puts a magnet on it and sticks it to the fridge. After dinner, the family explores the fun of duct tape. Despite the busy plot and superabundance of exclamation marks, Lefebvre’s debut never rises to the level of mayhem or fun it aspires to. The cumulative portion of the tale loses rhyme, rhythm and logic six pages before it ends. Retz’s Photoshop paintings are bright, wide-eyed and goofy, but they can’t add enough fun to compensate for the lackluster text.

Great gobs of glue should be more fun than this. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-9362612-7-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Flashlight Press

Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013

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