The premise is a bit of a stretch, but Cote’s book about the creative potential inherent in even the most unpromising article—in this case a single flip-flop’speaks for wide applications. Penny, bound to the beach with her mother, can only locate one of her flip-flop sandals (a.k.a. thongs) and hops to the car. At the beach, Penny finds uses for the flip-flop, among them a fan, scoop, crab-catcher, sand-writer. Throughout the day, she finds friends and loses them, but in the end makes contact with a pal who scratches her home phone number on the flip-flop. The point is well taken: To everything there is a season, and all it takes is fertile imagination to let the possibilities curl toward the light. Appealing beach scenes in sunny colors take the lightweight concept as far as it can go, but amiably. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8075-2504-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Though she never says outright that he was a real person, Kurtz introduces newly emergent readers to the historical John Chapman, walking along the Ohio, planting apple seeds, and bartering seedlings to settlers for food and clothing. Haverfield supplies the legendary portions of his tale, with views of a smiling, stylishly ragged, clean-shaven young man, pot on head, wildlife on shoulder or trailing along behind. Kurtz caps her short, rhythmic text with an invitation to “Clap your hands for Johnny Chapman. / Clap your hands for Johnny Appleseed!” An appealing way to open discussions of our country’s historical or legendary past. (Easy reader/nonfiction. 5-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-689-85958-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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With a little help from his audience, a young storyteller gets over a solid case of writer’s block in this engaging debut.
Despite the (sometimes creatively spelled) examples produced by all his classmates and the teacher’s assertion that “Stories are everywhere!” Ralph can’t get past putting his name at the top of his paper. One day, lying under the desk in despair, he remembers finding an inchworm in the park. That’s all he has, though, until his classmates’ questions—“Did it feel squishy?” “Did your mom let you keep it?” “Did you name it?”—open the floodgates for a rousing yarn featuring an interloping toddler, a broad comic turn and a dramatic rescue. Hanlon illustrates the episode with childlike scenes done in transparent colors, featuring friendly-looking children with big smiles and widely spaced button eyes. The narrative text is printed in standard type, but the children’s dialogue is rendered in hand-lettered printing within speech balloons. The episode is enhanced with a page of elementary writing tips and the tantalizing titles of his many subsequent stories (“When I Ate Too Much Spaghetti,” “The Scariest Hamster,” “When the Librarian Yelled Really Loud at Me,” etc.) on the back endpapers.
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some budding young writers off and running. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0761461807
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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