The bunnies at Minna’s school have been asked to create a poster about recycling. The best posters will be used as illustrations in the Community Recycling Calendar. Minna really wants to win, and her family has helpful suggestions. They recycle every day: Monday they take old clothes to the clothes bank; Tuesday they clean the yard and make compost; Wednesday they go to the recycling center. Every day they reuse, reduce, or recycle, but Minna doesn’t decide how to make her poster until the day before the contest. Winning posters for each month are announced, and just when she’s sure she hasn’t won, Minna gets her wish. Wallace’s (Pumpkin Day!, 2002, etc.) illustrations are her very recognizable cut-paper collages done here with found and recycled paper. The story is a vehicle for the Be Green message, but young readers won’t mind. Between the seven activities Minna and her family do during the week and the posters her 12 schoolmates display, each with a recycling suggestion of its own, there are plenty of ideas youngsters can act upon to be kinder to the Earth. There’s a fun recycling game (the game board is the penultimate page), a real recycling challenge for readers and their families, and, on the last page, swatches of the papers used in the illustrations with the invitation to find them in the pictures. There is more story here, but less information, than Gail Gibbons’s Recycle! (1992). However, the intended audience will enjoy the extras. An excellent introduction to this increasingly important subject. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7614-5149-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2003
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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