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YUCK'S FART CLUB AND YUCK'S SICK TRICK

Name: YUCK'S FART CLUB AND YUCK'S SICK TRICK
Author: Matt and Dave
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8153-4

From the Yuck series , Vol. 1

by Matt and Dave & illustrated by Nigel Baines ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2013

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This British import is something of a psychological test; parents who read it will find out exactly how permissive they are.

This slim volume is divided into two parts clearly telegraphed by the title. “In Fart Club, you can toot, poot, cut the cheese, break wind, drop a bomb, and let off as much as you like,” Yuck says quite early on in the first story. “Just make sure it’s big, loud, and smelly.” The second story unsurprisingly includes lengthy discussions about vomit. Yuck mixes up a batch of fake puke and pours it into his sister’s school bag. He also plays tricks on his teacher and his mother. Feminists may note that all of the victims are female, but a book about the quest for the world’s biggest fart may not require sociological analysis. The first story includes this sentence: “They did HONKERS and POPPERS, BLASTERS and SNEAKERS, CRACKERS and SQUIDGERS, but most of all…really smelly STINKERS!” Parents who can imagine reading that sentence out loud to their children will love this book. Those who stop reading by “SQUIDGERS” might consider another title, possibly a story about orphans who teach each other to read. Their children will thank them and hide Yuck’s Fart Club behind the cover. Regardless of the permissiveness of their parents, children of a certain age will flock to this book. (Humor. 7-10)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4424-8153-4

Page Count: 112

Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
YUCK'S PET WORM AND YUCK'S ROTTEN JOKE
by Matt and Dave ; illustrated by Nigel Baines

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HOW THE GODS CREATED THE FINGER PEOPLE

by Elizabeth Moore & Alice Couvillon & illustrated by Luz-Maria Lopez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2011

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Illustrated with a Honduran painter’s ornately detailed, Maya-inflected figures, this bilingual telling of a tale passed down by the illustrator’s grandmother also presents an authentically Central American blend of folk mythology and social commentary. When humans that have been created severally from fragile clay, combustible wood and cold, silent gold prove unsatisfactory to the gods, the Good-Hearted God "did what only gods can do": cuts off his fingers, which grow into such lively and elusive people that the gods can’t catch them to put them through various tests. (The text is careful to add that the fingers grow back, "like lizards' tails.") The weary gods take a siesta, and when they awake to discover that the warm-hearted humans have brought the golden model to life, they decree that the finger people will evermore be forced to work for the model’s rich descendants—but the rich will never enter heaven unless both come together. Not a traditional tale, but it's told in an animated way and is strongly evocative of its root culture. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-58980-889-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Pelican

Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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FAIRY HANDBOOK

by Monica Carretero & illustrated by Monica Carretero & translated by Jon Brokenbrow ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2011

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“Do fairies exist? The answer is a definite, energetic, resounding and unquestionable Yes.” Suggesting that anyone who has ever felt inexplicably grumpy, happy, scatterbrained, loving or giggly has been influenced by a particular kind of fairy, Carretero proceeds to catalog fairy types, habitats (country fairies have “hot pollen for breakfast” and do “complicated yoga exercises”) and yearly celebrations. An album at the end provides six pages of fairy types (kissy-kissy, bubbly, brainy—in glasses, natch—etc.), and the book concludes with a few fairy activities. Showing a fondness for bright flowers and checkerboard patterns, she illustrates the tour with luminous watercolor scenes featuring gatherings of wide-eyed winged girls (all fairies being “half girl and half insect”) with extra-long pipestem limbs flitting gracefully about a range of urban and rural settings. Next to Sally Gardner’s more clever and comprehensive Fairy Catalogue (2001) this comes off as sweet fare, but thin—and the single-page multicultural fairy gallery includes some stereotyping, with a German fairy identified by the sausage at the end of her wand and an omnibus “Oriental” fairy next to others from specific countries. Like its diminutive subjects, easy to miss. (Picture book. 7-9)