An alphabetic array of animals dressed in spiffy, sparkly human attire gathers every year in the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool for a dancing competition: affluent alpacas, bears in bright boleros, camels who conga, all the way to wolves and wolverines who do the Watusi and beyond. A few creatures are unexpected: N is for numbats, U is for ugwumps (“We have just invented these”) and X is for oxen who foxtrot. The bordered watercolor-and-gouache illustrations flounce and swirl, busily filling the pages in a style reminiscent of Graeme Base but with less crisp definition. Written in verse, often alliterative, the conceit works, but the “I Spy” facet does not. At the end, the judges declare everyone winners, but the band can’t play the grand finale because the monkeys have hidden all 26 instruments. The hidden objects are quite difficult to find, and frustrated readers may end up resorting to the upside-down key in the back and flipping to the endpapers, where all 26 are clearly depicted. At least two will be unfamiliar to kids: a guiro and a contrabassoon. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8109-8842-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
With wordplay reminiscent of Margie Palatini at her best, Helakoski takes four timorous chickens into, then out of, the literal and figurative woods. Fleeing the henhouse after catching sight of a wolf, the pusillanimous pullets come to a deep ditch: “ ‘What if we can’t jump that far?’ ‘What if we fall in the ditch?’ ‘What if we get sucked into the mud?’ The chickens tutted, putted, and flutted. They butted into themselves and each other, until one by one . . . ” they do fall in. But then they pick themselves up and struggle out. Ensuing encounters with cows and a lake furnish similar responses and outcomes; ultimately they tumble into the wolf’s very cave, where they “picked, pecked, and pocked. They ruffled, puffled, and shuffled. They shrieked, squeaked, and freaked, until . . . ” their nemesis scampers away in panic. Fluttering about in pop-eyed terror, the portly, partly clothed hens make comical figures in Cole’s sunny cartoons (as does the flummoxed wolf)—but the genuine triumph in their final strut—“ ‘I am a big, brave chicken,’ said one chicken. ‘Ohh . . . ’ said the others. ‘Me too.’ ‘Me three.’ ‘Me four’ ”—brings this tribute to chicken power to a rousing close. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-47575-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
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