Hopping from head to head, a wizard’s errant hat works a quick series of transformations in this giddy, rhymed episode. As gangs of delighted children look on in Tusa’s (Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden, 2001, etc.) populous, loosely drawn watercolors, the hat, a quirky blue number resembling an upside-down tureen, changes a crabby man into an oversized toad, a park-bench snoozer into a bear, and so on. At last, a gigantic, smiling wizard dances into the picture to reclaim it and turns everyone back to normal. Until his arrival, the last rhyming word in each verse is printed on the following page to heighten suspense, so this broad, lively successor to Tony Johnston’s Witch’s Hat (1984) will have children demanding repeated readings and completing each verse at top volume: “Oh, the magic hat, the magic hat! / It moved like this, it moved like that! / It spun through the air / (It’s true! It’s true!) / And sat on the head of a . . . KANGAROO!” (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-201025-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
Though bedroom monsters are a dime a dozen, this one’s a bit different. Looking like a black wombat with a bright-red clown nose, the Creature that lurks under wakeful young Jo-Jo’s bed is but the size of an ant. A hungry one, however, who starts absorbing all the darkness it can find. Going the “Fat Cat” route, the monster proceeds to swell as it sucks the dark not just from the bedroom but from the entire world and beyond—leaving confusion and dismay in its wake, until “There were no shadows and hardly any dreams. There was only the light. The stark and staring light.” Liao, a popular Taiwanese illustrator, creates polished, sometimes wordless cartoon scenes featuring a monster whose only scary characteristic is its eventual humongous size. Ultimately Jo-Jo’s tears draw the behemoth back to Earth, where a cuddle and a “darkness lullaby” puts them both to sleep and allows all the darkness to leach back into the universe. Not exactly entropy in action, but a cozy, if lengthy, bedtime tale nonetheless. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3859-7
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2008
This one may be too stuck on the arc of the original tale to come alive in its own right. (Picture book. 5-7)
An extremely odd variant on "The Three Little Pigs."
It's time for Bork (two eyes, the sister), Gork (the one-eyed brother) and Nklxwcyz (three eyes, like their mom) to go out into the universe to find their own planets. Mom tells them to stick together and watch out for the Big Bad Robot. Bork chooses the red planet, and Gork is enchanted by the golden rings of another, but Nklxwcyz chooses Neptune and builds his house of space stuff and space junk. When the Big Bad Robot smashes Bork’s and Gork’s homes, they flee to Nklxwcyz, whose house is so strong that the Robot gets stuck in the telescope/chimney and explodes. The three children call mom, as exhorted, and she comes to tuck all three into bed. The green-skinned, red-haired or bald little aliens careen around the starry black universe with jetpacks and clear, round headgear, and there is some faint echo of charm in “ ‘Little alien! Little alien!’ it broinked. ‘COME OUT OF HIDING!’ / ‘Not by the orbit of this ring I’m riding!’ ” (The classic dialogue varies slightly from sibling to sibling.) It fails the logic test, though: The Big Bad Robot is fearsome, but there really doesn't seem to be a good reason for him to go after these kids.
This one may be too stuck on the arc of the original tale to come alive in its own right. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86689-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
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