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
Deft hommage, but hilarious even outside that context.
A droll seaside idyll, paying tribute as much to film comedies of the silent era as to the 1953 movie that inspired it.
In wordless, monochrome, mostly full-page illustrations, Merveille considerably reworks and abbreviates the plot of Les Vacances de M. Hulot but preserves both the pipe-smoking title character’s amiable imperturbability and the original’s nonstop succession of sandy distractions, minor disasters, and comical set pieces. A positive magnet for mishaps, hardly does Hulot stroll onto the beach before he’s doing classic battle with a folding lounge chair. There follows business with beach balls and children, a sea gull who steals his shoe, some funny improv with a seashell after he drops his pipe in the water, and other incidents. Finally, he falls asleep on the aforementioned chair and floats out to sea—fetching up in an English hamlet where he is last seen offering his by-now-tattered newspaper (its palest yellow the only spot of color in the art) to an astonished resident. Practically every picture is either a punch line or an obvious setup for one, but even young audiences unexposed as yet to the Chaplins and Keatons of yore will have no trouble either connecting the dots or appreciating the visual jokery.
Deft hommage, but hilarious even outside that context. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4254-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
A joyful, upbeat tale that takes a positive perspective on an immigrant child’s first encounters.
A young refugee’s dream of riding a bicycle comes true at last when he arrives in America.
Though he’s too short to reach the pedals, Joseph loves to help Daau, an older resident of the Kenyan refugee camp at Kakuma, fix and maintain his bicycle. When Joseph and his mother leave the camp for America, though, he sees a bicycle that looks more his size. How can he persuade its owner, a classmate he dubs Whoosh for the way she zooms along, to lend it to him? His first try, a carefully drawn lion, she takes to be only a general offer of friendship. His second, a bandanna, she rejects because “I like my hair freeeeeee.” “Besides,” she goes on, “my bike broke. A tree hit it.” Third time’s the charm, as Joseph’s skill at bicycle repair earns him his longed-for ride—wobbly at first but soon steady and confident enough for no-hands. Cranking up the visual energy with quick, slashing brush strokes, Daley creates a generic urban setting for his dark-skinned young companions, tops Joseph’s new friend with a huge mop of flyaway hair that reflects her exuberant personality, and generally poses figures with widespread arms and welcoming smiles. In contrast to the traumas and cultural conflicts highlighted in many immigrant stories, such as Mary Hoffman and Karin Littlewood’s The Color of Home (2002) or Sarah Garland’s Azzi in Between (2013), Joseph’s adjustment from the outset seems relatively easy.
A joyful, upbeat tale that takes a positive perspective on an immigrant child’s first encounters. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55451-806-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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