Fledgling readers will agree with Princess’ bemused comment: “This Land of Fake-Believe is crazy-cakes!” (Fantasy. 6-8)
Jones takes “The Three Bears” for a dizzy spin in this laff-riot series opener.
Searching for a midnight snack, Princess (first name) Pink (last name) falls through a portal in her refrigerator. On the other side, she meets friendly Mother Moose (a bull moose), then follows green-haired Moldylocks to check out the chairs, bowls and beds of the Wookiee-like Three Beards. Later, having previously hacked an unwanted, pink, fairy-princess dress into a “Cowboy Caveman” outfit suitable for disguising herself as a fourth Beard, she intrepidly returns to save her new friend from being boiled in a vat of chili. Being cast against both genre type and publishers’ convention, Princess likes “dirty sneakers, giant bugs, mud puddles, monster trucks, and cheesy pizza” far more than fairies, princesses or anything pink, and she also (for a wonder) has dark skin in the cartoon illustrations. The text is distributed in easily digestible blocks and dialogue balloons among simply drawn scenes of popeyed figures rushing hither and yon. Parents worried about this nonstop romp’s literary value will surely be appeased by the page of review and discussion questions at the end.
Fledgling readers will agree with Princess’ bemused comment: “This Land of Fake-Believe is crazy-cakes!” (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: April 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-63840-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Branches/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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