Bernard’s blue family seems fine with the situation, living happily in a pink house and watching all-pink television, but...
The second in an app series called Colorful World, this follow-up to Zoe’s Green Planet (2013) follows Bernard, who is “blue from head to toe” on an all-pink planet.
Bernard’s blue family seems fine with the situation, living happily in a pink house and watching all-pink television, but Bernard is not. After a failed attempt to paint himself pink to fit in with his bullying classmates, Bernard meets a visitor from another planet. It’s Zoe, on her way to visit her friend on the faraway red planet. Zoe and Bernard become friends as they repair Zoe’s ship, and the story ends with the two preparing to fly away together. As with the first app, the star attraction here is the papier-mâché artwork, which lends startling depth and texture to the subtly moving backgrounds and animation. Games integrated into the story (a maze; a fish-sorting challenge) can also be accessed from the main menu, along with options to display text, mute ambient sounds or enable narration. The story feels stale, though. Bernard learns the same lesson—that people of different colors are similar after all—that Zoe did in her app, and ending this volume without the catharsis of space flight disappoints. Taken as a whole with future Colorful World chapters, the series may add up to something greater. Bernard’s story alone is lovely to look at with too few shades between its primary hues. (iPad storybook app. 4-8) .Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Square Igloo
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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