Red Knit Cap Girl wants to talk to the moon, even throwing a party for her, but only when the lights go out and quiet falls does it appear.
The big-booted, mushroom-headed girl’s bulbous silhouette, mute, mouth-less face and dotted eyes feel familiar, even though her proportions look downright strange. A crimson hat and smart jacket pop against shadowed woodlands, friendly and bright. Animal buddies (Rabbit, Bear, Squirrel and Hedgehog) help with her moon-chat mission, their kind beady eyes shining and stubby bodies playful. When Red Knit Cap Girl approaches a mystic night owl who might know how to draw the moon into a conversation, readers will bristle with interest. The owl, his eyes like embers, says enigmatically, “You will find a way.” A plywood canvas creates a fantastically pliant, otherworldly atmosphere that undulates with shifting perspectives, horizons, dimensions—even surfaces. Once painted, the wood’s grain assumes the look of clouds, sand, water, grass, mist, creating a bewitching forest that feels at times magical and others spooky. Nocturnal hues (dusky yellows and reds, darkening greens and ultimately a blackening blue) transport readers to nightfall and the moon’s imminent arrival. Young readers might pleasantly puzzle over the moon’s need for dark and silence, for peace, in order to show herself and whisper with Red Knit Cap Girl.
A gentle Zen-like parable, with visual and narrative intrigue. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: June 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-12946-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Why have fairy tales lasted so long? Maybe it’s because they change with every teller.
It takes surprisingly little effort to turn the Three Little Pigs into superheroes. The Big Bad Wolf basically started out as a supervillain, with the ability to blow a house down, and the pigs had to perform spectacular feats to outwit him. In this picture book, the wolf, locked in the Happily Never After tower, devises a plot to escape. Using rotten eggs and spicy ginger, he creates the Gingerbread Man, who makes his way to a baking contest where the three pigs and other fairy-tale characters are competing to win the key to the city. The Gingerbread Man grabs the key, and not even superhero pigs are fast enough to catch him, but with their secret weapon—mustard (which one of the pigs also uses to bake cookies)—they save the day. The morals: Evil never triumphs, and mustard cookies are delicious. The book’s charm is in the details. There are splotches of mustard on the cookies featured on the endpapers, and a sly-looking mouse is hiding on many of the pages. The story even manages to include more than a dozen fairy-tale figures without seeming frenzied. Evans’ use of shading is so skillful that it almost seems possible to reach out and touch the characters. Most of the human characters are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Superheroes, and readers, will live happily-ever-after. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-68221-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pint-sized sleuth tracks a purple underground monster.
When Mom scrapes the family's uneaten spaghetti into the sink, young Sammy Sanders hears strange slurping sounds. He becomes "77 percent convinced" that a spaghetti-slurping serpent lives in his sewer, and can't get to sleep. The next morning, Sammy and his little sister Sally investigate. There are meatballs and strands of limp spaghetti around the manhole cover! Sammy, whose round glasses make the whites of his eyes look as enormous as an owl's, can barely contain his excitement. After he removes the cover, Sally slips on some sauce and lands in the sewer, becoming a smelly sludgy mess. Sammy's left to investigate alone and comes up with a brilliant idea. Late that night, he sneaks out of the house with a salty snack for himself and a bowl of spaghetti for the serpent. But he falls asleep, and the huge serpent slithers up to the scrumptious spaghetti. Slurping sounds startle Sammy awake; he's face-to-face with the monster. There's just one thing to do: Share! Sammy' salty snack earns him a friend for life. And that night, he sleeps soundly, 100% sure that there's a serpent in his sewer. Zenz's illustrations, in Prismacolor colored pencil, look generic, but Ripes' yarn has pace and phonetic crackle.
Fun enough once through, but not much more. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7614-6101-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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