An early comic drills home the lesson that you never know how much you need someone until you find a friend.
Two wild critters navigate seasons along with the ups and downs of an unexpected friendship.
Tiny Fox lives in a valley with just an apple tree for companionship, and, “like most small animals, he went about his day believing he was happy.” All that changes when Great Boar arrives and plops down beneath the tree. Perturbed, Tiny Fox now has to share everything. When he leaves for a short time and returns, however, he discovers Great Boar is gone and a newfound loneliness has settled in his place. Happily, the two are reunited in the first story in this collection (“Here”), and as the seasons change (“Together” takes place during fall and winter, snowy weather continues in “Apart,” and “There” takes the pals into spring), the two learn to trust one another and, when called upon to do so, trust themselves as well. Watercolors capable of evoking not simply the splendor of a new dawn, but also this little book’s emotional pitch are wielded with surgical skill. The smallest dab of a line beneath an eye can indicate remorse or, more often, worry. This storyline provides an elegant bridge between picture books and graphic novels; for fans of similarly early, gentle comics like Fox and Rabbit by Beth Ferry (2020) and Bug Boys by Laura Knetzger (2020).
An early comic drills home the lesson that you never know how much you need someone until you find a friend. (Graphic early reader. 6-9)Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63715-020-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
The “Eighty Legs” of the title refer to sum of all the animals (their legs, actually) within—such animals as the Japanese macaques that need a Jacuzzi “when winter is a doozy” and an echidna that's described as “Pointy, poky. / Prickly, stickly.” Amusing poems, some simple, others more sophisticated, about unusual and well-known animals from South America, the Arctic and Antarctic, Africa, Asia and Australia fill this volume. Most of North America and Europe are ignored, but from the quetzal to the cassowary, kids will go on quite a journey. The watercolor, gouache and colored-pencil illustrations are comical; the toothy goanna’s portrait takes up a whole page, with his long tail going off the edge and then curving around the top. On another double-page spread, the Australian outback stretches into the distance with one furious dingo “penned” on one side of a fence and an endless, calm flock of sheep on the other. While there is no index of titles or first lines, a “Menagerie of Facts”—interesting tidbits about each animal mentioned—is arranged alphabetically with the animal names highlighted in red. A very general map provides some geographic orientation. This collection will be enjoyed in home, classroom (the poet is a former teacher) and library settings, where young poets can try writing their own verses. Not very scientific, but fun. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-439-58755-6
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
Resembling a younger Harry Potter more than a little in Robertson’s technically accomplished, though flatly uninspired paintings, a lad finds an immense egg in the hen house one morning, and dutifully takes on parental duties for the dragon that hatches out of it. Though the dragon, a big, awkward-looking creature with green bat wings and warty, outsized hind legs, splatters flames and swoops about with dog-like enthusiasm, nothing is ever damaged, no one is ever hurt—not even the neighborhood “maiden” who is tied to a post for the “damsel in distress” lesson. Robertson doesn’t even try to solve various logistical problems, such as how the egg was transported through visibly-too-small doors and windows to the boy’s bedroom, the three panels depicting a mock battle between boy and dragon are confusingly out of sequence, and though the dragon is supposed to be roaring in the final scene, his mouth is closed. Even the dragon’s search for home is a sort of ho-hum affair. A distinct waste next to such kindred books as Jerdine Nolen’s Raising Dragons (1998) and Rod Clement’s Just Another Ordinary Day (1997). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2546-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
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