by Orel Protopopescu & illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2007
Maybelle can’t stop the music; can her family stop the crocodiles? From morning til night, little Maybelle plays her two sticks—on the furniture, the walls, on whatever’s in front of her. Protopopescu captures the rhythm of Maybelle’s drumming in her repetitive rhyming stanzas: “dance tune, romance tune, chance tune, trance tune,” and so forth. Down the road to the bayou she drums, attracting a bunch of smiling crocodiles, so friendly she can drum on their teeth. They follow her, dancing, back home. Her parents, however, aren’t crazy about having 11 crocodiles, however frolicsome, in the living room. Maybelle switches to a big calypso drum and solves the problem. The story’s ending may lack clarity or logic, but the text sets a catchy rhythm and never lets go. Wilsdorf’s illustrations, rich in saturated color, glow with warmth and vibrancy. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: March 12, 2007
ISBN: 0-374-38022-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2007
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by Orel Protopopescu & illustrated by Jeanne B. de Sainte Marie & developed by Actialuna
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by Orel Protopopescu & illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf
by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Bob Staake ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2013
Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children...
A fizzy yet revealing romp through the toy world.
Though of standard picture-book size, Stein and illustrator Staake’s latest collaboration (Bugs Galore, 2012, etc.) presents a sweeping compendium of diversions for the young. From fairies and gnomes, race cars and jacks, tin cans and socks, to pots ’n’ pans and a cardboard box, Stein combs the toy kingdom for equally thrilling sources of fun. These light, tightly rhymed quatrains focus nicely on the functions characterizing various objects, such as “Floaty, bubbly, / while-you-wash toys” or “Sharing-secrets- / with-tin-cans toys,” rather than flatly stating their names. Such ambiguity at once offers Staake free artistic rein to depict copious items capable of performing those tasks and provides pre-readers ample freedom to draw from the experiences of their own toy chests as they scan Staake’s vibrant spreads brimming with chunky, digitally rendered objects and children at play. The sense of community and sharing suggested by most of the spreads contributes well to Stein’s ultimate theme, which he frames by asking: “But which toy is / the best toy ever? / The one most fun? / Most cool and clever?” Faced with three concluding pages filled with all sorts of indoor and outside toys to choose from, youngsters may be shocked to learn, on turning to the final spread, that the greatest one of all—“a toy SENSATION!”—proves to be “[y]our very own / imagination.”
Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children everywhere. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6254-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Peter Stein
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by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Bob Staake
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by Peter Stein ; illustrated by Peter Stein
by David Milgrim & illustrated by David Milgrim ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2003
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
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by David Milgrim ; illustrated by David Milgrim
by David Milgrim & illustrated by David Milgrim
by David Milgrim & illustrated by David Milgrim
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by David Milgrim ; illustrated by David Milgrim
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by David Milgrim ; illustrated by David Milgrim
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by David Milgrim ; illustrated by David Milgrim
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