Demonstrating that no, size doesn’t matter, Dunrea sends a small speckled hen on a heroic quest to save her farm with Dragon magic. As is his wont, Dunrea creates a sort of rustic, folkloric setting for this illustrated novelette. Learning that their beloved old keeper Mem Pockets is about to lose the farm for back taxes, the hens gather in their cozy “henwoodie” for a strategy session. When the eldest, Old Peggoty, recalls an ancient rhyme about gaining the ability to lay golden eggs by passing dangerous ritual tests—in a haunted barrow, by three eldritch standing stones and on the roaring shore of the “Great Green Sea,”—timorous Hanne, smallest of the flock, screws her courage to the sticking place and sets out. As it turns out, she gets some supernatural help and, though winning her way back to the farm turns out to be more hazardous than the outward journey, she returns in weary triumph to face a final, deadly challenge: laying those eggs. Presented as a tidy-looking quarto, with a vignette and a full-page, formal painted scene in dark, subtly modulated colors for each chapter, this will appeal to young readers who revel in magic tales, but aren’t quite ready for more voluminous fantasies. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-24216-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2006
Varieties, life cycle, pack and hunting behavior, and the current status of this endangered predator—although with what may seem too many transparently rhetorical questions (``Are wolves savage and destructive hunters of people and livestock?'') and fillers (``After wolves kill a large animal, they may rest for a brief time or eat right away''). Without attribution, Simon states that ``...there is no record of a healthy wolf ever trying to kill a human in North America.'' In Gray Wolf, Red Wolf (1990, for slightly older readers), Patent is more precise: ``there is no record of a healthy wild wolf attacking a human.'' Patent also does a better job of stating the case for and against reintroducing wolves in national parks. Still, though his text isn't up to his usual high standard, Simon again selects outstanding photos—this book's strongest and most appealing feature. (Nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-022531-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
Pilkey is still having entirely too much fun with this popular series, which continues to careen along with nary a whiff of...
Trying to salvage failing grades, George and Harold use their handy 3-D Hypno Ring on termagant teacher Ms. Ribble—and succeed only in creating a supervillain with a medusa-like ’do and a yen to conquer the world with wedgie power.
Using a pair of robot sidekicks and plenty of spray starch, she even overcomes Captain Underpants. Is it curtains (or rather, wedgies) for all of us? Can the redoubtable fourth graders rescue the Waistband Warrior (a.k.a. Principal Krupp) and find a way to save the day? Well, duh. Not, of course, without an epic battle waged in low-budget Flip-O-Rama, plus no fewer than three homemade comics, including an “Origin of Captain Underpants” in which we learn that his home planet of Underpantyworld was destroyed by the . . . wait for it . . . “Starch Ship Enterprize.” As in the previous four episodes, neither the pace nor the funky humor (“Diapers and toilets and poop . . . oh my!”) lets up for a moment. Pilkey is still having entirely too much fun with this popular series, which continues to careen along with nary a whiff of staleness. (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-439-04999-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2001
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