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THE THUNDERBOLT EXPRESS

From the Monkey World series

Monkeys who met previously in MonkeyWorld ABC (2012) get names as well and occupations on a thrill-a-minute train ride.

At the Station Master’s “All aboard!” passengers from Mayday the detective and Oscar the magician to Jango Jenkins and his Dixieland Band climb into the Thunderbolt Express, bound for Miggleswick station. They are all rendered as stylized, nattily attired monkeys in Porter’s cleanly drawn, brightly colored cartoon illustrations. Any expectations of a quiet journey are quickly dispelled as a mystery featuring a vanished pet is followed by a brake failure, a missing bridge, a wild flying leap over a crocodile-infested river and a full-speed trip right through a circus tent. Whew! All agree, at the end, that the ride was well worth having to chuck out their luggage, instruments and, for some, clothes along the way. The adventure is narrated in a dry, matter-of-fact present tense that folds in some nifty vocabulary as well as conveying these monkeys’ personalities: “Jango Jenkins and his band are really swinging. Only Mono the inventor refuses to jive. / Meanwhile, back in the compartment, a mystery is unfurling.” A hoot for younger children fond of monkeys (not to mention, in one scene, monkeys in underpants!). (Picture book. 4-6)

 

Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-57061-877-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Sasquatch

Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013

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EMMA FULL OF WONDERS

A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf.

A big, yellow hound dog has small, wonderful dreams.

Emma’s dreams are doggily simple. Rendered in gray, they manifest above her contentedly slumbering form: “singing, dancing, rolling in grass, splashing in water, going for walks,” and eating. After she wakes and eats, she naps again, sprawled on her back, tummy distended, the very picture of canine bliss. Pages turn, with Cooper’s lyrical text focusing on Emma and her sensations: “The days went on, shifting and taking shape, and now there were times when her whole body felt strange, but there was no stopping the days.” A gently curving line of overlapping Emmas, rising, stretching, scratching, shifting, and resettling, underscores time’s march. Adult readers may be anxious at this point, fearing Emma’s impending death with the page turn—but no, it turns out Emma’s been literally full of wonders, and she gazes mildly at a puppy emerging from her own body. Then there they are, seven little Emmas, and they now embody her dreams. Cooper’s brushy, loose watercolors, outlined in swoops of ink, complement his Emma-focused text. She resides in a human home, but her owner appears only as tan-skinned hands extending from the margin to offer a bowl of food, caress her snout, or towel off a pup. In this way, Cooper invites readers into Emma’s interiority, allowing them to sit quietly and wonder with her.

A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf. (Picture book. 4-6)

Pub Date: April 2, 2024

ISBN: 9781250884763

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024

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WOODLAND DREAMS

Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history.

A sonorous, soporific invitation to join woodland creatures in bedding down for the night.

As in her Moon Babies, illustrated by Amy Hevron (2019), Jameson displays a rare gift for harmonious language and rhyme. She leads off with a bear: “Come home, Big Paws. / Berry picker / Honey trickster / Shadows deepen in the glen. / Lumber back inside your den.” Continuing in the same pattern, she urges a moose (“Velvet Nose”), a deer (“Tiny Hooves”), and a succession of ever smaller creatures to find their nooks and nests as twilight deepens in Boutavant’s woodsy, autumnal scenes and snow begins to drift down. Through each of those scenes quietly walks an alert White child (accompanied by an unusually self-controlled pooch), peering through branches or over rocks at the animals in the foregrounds and sketching them in a notebook. The observer’s turn comes round at last, as a bearded parent beckons: “This way, Small Boots. / Brave trailblazer / Bright stargazer / Cabin’s toasty. Blanket’s soft. / Snuggle deep in sleeping loft.” The animals go unnamed, leaving it to younger listeners to identify each one from the pictures…if they can do so before the verses’ murmurous tempo closes their eyes.

Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history. (Picture book. 4-6)

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-4521-7063-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020

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