A very giggle-inducing telling of an unusual adoption story. Hepzibah the witch lives in a tower by an old cornfield, eating nothing but burnt cupcakes. She’s not pleased when her sister leaves her a human child, but she adopts her, names her Halloweena, and figures, “if I can change a fool into a flea, I could certainly change a diaper.” She finds, though, that she has to pull up all the poison ivy and plant fruit trees, and give up her nights out with the ghouls. As she grows, Halloweena misses other children; by the time she is six, she manages to attract some human friends by magicking the cornfield into growing candy corn. It all ends with “a Halloweena party.” There’s a fine interplay between the droll text and Roberts’s wonderfully puckish illustrations (New Yorker readers will recognize her signature curlicues). When Halloweena has trouble riding a broom, Hepzibah makes her a training broom with three brushes; Hepzibah muses, “how hard could it be to make a few friends?” and the image shows her with her cauldron surrounded by packets of “best friends mix”; Baby Halloweena’s stylish, round crib has a pink-and-white coverlet and a netting of spider webs. Yoking the sweetly normal (Hepzibah’s ironing board) with the wryly odd (the ironing board has chicken feet) reflects the very human story of fitting in, making friends, and working with what you are given. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-82825-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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