A burned-out rocket booster puts a kink in pudgy, green Q Pootle 5’s plans to make it to his friend Z Pootle 6’s birthday party on the Moon. That booster looks remarkably like a tin can in Butterworth’s simply drawn cartoons—and indeed, after a forced landing on Earth, Q Pootle 5 finds that a more or less empty can of cat food makes the perfect replacement part. Once Henry the cat has finished his supper, of course, he makes certain it is empty and it does the trick. No, not exactly rocket science, but the pictures are well stocked with page-filling disaster noises—including a four-page, giant-sized “sssscccrrreeeeeeeee . . .” that is Q Pootle’s landing—and helpful earthlings, mostly of the four-legged variety. An unfolding, poster-sized party scene brings up the rear of this droll close encounter of the silly kind. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-84243-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
Fast and furious action guaranteed to keep new readers laughing and turning pages.
Never underestimate the chaotic fun that magic and an angry bouncing ball can create.
When Frog goes to the library, he borrows a book on magic. He then heads to a nearby park to read up on the skills necessary to becoming “a great magician.” Suddenly, a deflated yellow ball lands with a “Thud!” at his feet. Although he flexes his new magician muscles, Frog’s spells fall as flat as the ball. But when Frog shouts “Phooey!” and kicks the ball away, it inflates to become a big, angry ball. The ball begins to chase Frog, so he seeks shelter in the library—and Frog and ball turn the library’s usual calm into chaos. The cartoon chase crescendos. The ball bounces into the middle of a game of chess, interrupts a puppet show, and crashes into walls and bookcases. Staying just one bounce ahead, Frog runs, hides, grabs a ride on a book cart, and scatters books and papers as he slides across the library furniture before an alligator patron catches the ball and kicks it out the library door. But that’s not the end of the ball….Caple’s tidy panels and pastel-hued cartoons make a surprisingly effective setting for the slapstick, which should have young readers giggling. Simple sentences—often just subject and verb—with lots of repetition propel the action. Frog’s nonsense-word spells (“Poof Wiffle, Bop Bip!”) are both funny and excellent practice in phonetics. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Fast and furious action guaranteed to keep new readers laughing and turning pages. (Graphic early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4341-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Hopping from head to head, a wizard’s errant hat works a quick series of transformations in this giddy, rhymed episode. As gangs of delighted children look on in Tusa’s (Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden, 2001, etc.) populous, loosely drawn watercolors, the hat, a quirky blue number resembling an upside-down tureen, changes a crabby man into an oversized toad, a park-bench snoozer into a bear, and so on. At last, a gigantic, smiling wizard dances into the picture to reclaim it and turns everyone back to normal. Until his arrival, the last rhyming word in each verse is printed on the following page to heighten suspense, so this broad, lively successor to Tony Johnston’s Witch’s Hat (1984) will have children demanding repeated readings and completing each verse at top volume: “Oh, the magic hat, the magic hat! / It moved like this, it moved like that! / It spun through the air / (It’s true! It’s true!) / And sat on the head of a . . . KANGAROO!” (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-201025-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
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