When each of the five Romero kids come down with the same fever that killed their mother and many people in the community, their father, a doctor, fears for their lives. Each sick child has a vision of a cat who speaks a catchy rhyming refrain and bears a tray with a tortilla. The children become well, and claim it was the Tortilla Cat who cured them. Dr. Romero believes the cat is more fever dream than real, but when he becomes ill, the cat appears to him, leaving five kittens—one for each child—as a remembrance. The connection or significance of the kittens is never really clear, which turns an enjoyable read into a rather abstract adventure, but the Latin American flavor of Winter’s surreal illustrations restores much of the magic. (Fiction. 6-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-15-289587-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1998
In a true incident from the author's family history, rebel militia ransack a despised Tory family's house for valuables to buy arms. Young Katie hides in her mother's wedding trunk, nearly smothered under layers of clothes. One of the rebels (a neighbor) searches the trunk; discovering Katie, he claims to see Tories coming and, leaving the lid open so the child can breathe, hustles the others out. Told in the unvarnished yet vivid voice of its heroine, taut and poetically economical, a suspenseful story of a child's discovery that even enemies may be capable of goodness. Himler's gentle hues impart a misty, long-ago feeling, but he also nicely catches the story's drama in his carefully composed watercolors. (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1992
ISBN: 0-02-789512-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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