Mabel has moxie, but she deserves a better story. As Mabel herself might say, “Send for the script doctor, darlings.”...
A pampered French bulldog experiences a sudden decline in her eyesight, affecting her mobility and perceptions of potential threats.
Little Mabel established her opulent lifestyle and divalike demeanor in her previous self-narrated story, Naughty Mabel (2015). In this sequel, Mabel’s eyesight mysteriously goes haywire, and she runs into walls, mistakes a bowl of potpourri for her dogfood dish, and begins to experience double vision. The meandering, overlong text describes how Mabel’s eye problems worsen at night, when she perceives large shapes as monsters about to attack her. On a sleepover with friends, she smashes dinosaur skeletons and, back in her own home, beats a gigantic armchair with her pink baseball bat, leading to a trip to the eye doctor for an exam. (Another dog owner there is a black woman; Mabel’s owners and her next-door neighbor are white.) Mabel tries on different kinds of “very attractive” glasses, but her owners choose contact lenses as “more practical for an active girl.” Mabel’s sassy attitude and over-the-top antics have a slapstick appeal, but several of the jokes in her witty dialogue are way over the heads of young readers, who likely won’t be familiar with potpourri, couscous, Martha Stewart, or black-and-white movies starring Bette Davis. The final gag depends on readers having a fairly sophisticated, well-developed sense of irony—debatable for the younger end of the audience range. Clever, cartoon-style illustrations and a supersized format provide visual heft for Mabel’s narrative but can’t compensate for the weaknesses of the text.
Mabel has moxie, but she deserves a better story. As Mabel herself might say, “Send for the script doctor, darlings.” (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3024-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
