Delicious, nutritious absurdity.
Three stories with vegetable protagonists make up this quirky French import.
In the first story, a patch of leeks dreams of adventure to the far reaches of the Earth—the North Pole, the South Pole, and the West Pole are all named as possible destinations. Then a cow passing by tricks the naïve leeks into believing it’s one of Santa’s reindeer (from the North Pole!) and entices them to file out of the garden through a gap in the fence. Ultimately, the cow is more like a wily folk-tale fox: a page-turn reveals the leeks marching right into its waiting, open mouth. In the next story, the carrots laugh at the leeks’ demise but then worry that the “reindeer” may return for them. They tunnel through the earth to escape, only to end up in a cavern full of bats, who then take them to a party at a rabbit warren. The twists and turns of the stories are humorously bizarre and culminate in the third story, featuring a battle among the carrots, leeks, and other vegetables, until they all end up in a big pot of soup. The translation offers children both rich vocabulary and Gallic humor: "Bats. Right. An anguished murmur passes among the carrots." Barrier’s ink drawings employ energetic, humorous line that recalls James Marshall in its ability to express broad emotion in just a few strokes.
Delicious, nutritious absurdity. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-35942-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rollicking tale of rivalry.
Sweet Street had just one baker, Monsieur Oliphant, until two new confectionists move in, bringing a sugar rush of competition and customers.
First comes “Cookie Concocter par excellence” Mademoiselle Fee and then a pie maker, who opens “the divine Patisserie Clotilde!” With each new arrival to Sweet Street, rivalries mount and lines of hungry treat lovers lengthen. Children will delight in thinking about an abundance of gingerbread cookies, teetering, towering cakes, and blackbird pies. Wonderfully eccentric line-and-watercolor illustrations (with whites and marbled pastels like frosting) appeal too. Fine linework lends specificity to an off-kilter world in which buildings tilt at wacky angles and odd-looking (exclusively pale) people walk about, their pantaloons, ruffles, long torsos, and twiglike arms, legs, and fingers distinguishing them as wonderfully idiosyncratic. Rotund Monsieur Oliphant’s periwinkle complexion, flapping ears, and elongated nose make him look remarkably like an elephant while the women confectionists appear clownlike, with exaggerated lips, extravagantly lashed eyes, and voluminous clothes. French idioms surface intermittently, adding a certain je ne sais quoi. Embedded rhymes contribute to a bouncing, playful narrative too: “He layered them and cherried them and married people on them.” Tension builds as the cul de sac grows more congested with sweet-makers, competition, frustration, and customers. When the inevitable, fantastically messy food fight occurs, an observant child finds a sweet solution amid the delicious detritus.
A rollicking tale of rivalry. (Picture book. 4-8 )Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-101-91885-2
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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