The wistfulness that's Palmer Brown's—with a twist, here, of E. B. White—and some characteristically winsome details (like...
Palmer Brown's first book in 20 years looks and sounds—and sometimes resounds—like Cheerful (1957), though the situation and its development are less inspired (remember churchmouse Cheerful singing "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John") and the illustrations accompany rather than balance the text—which in any case has less intriguing pictorial possibilities.
Hickory, Dickory, and Dock live with their parents in a farmhouse (you-guessed-it) clock—now and again tripping the farmer's wife's mousetraps for fun—until Hickory, biggest and boldest of the three, yields to the field-mice's siren song. "Each blade of grass you pull has a sweet white nibble at the base," they tell him, "each honeysuckle flower a drop of nectar." So, promising his mother to settle in the upper meadow ("because she could see it from the corner of the stairway window"), Hickory departs. "Time is going, / Never staying, / Always flowing, Ever saying: / Gone!" his father recites as the hour strikes. And it is this motif that hovers over Hickory's subsequent tender friendship with grasshopper Hop—whose own song ends, he's crushed to discover, with warning of her death when cold weather comes. He'll take her off south, Hickory determines; but even as they sing their songs "each a line in turn," Hickory shivers . . . and all unsaid is said.
The wistfulness that's Palmer Brown's—with a twist, here, of E. B. White—and some characteristically winsome details (like the pickle jar that serves as Hickory's sun parlor) give this a quiet appeal however less than memorable it may be . (Fantasy. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 1978
ISBN: 978-1-59017-627-6
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
BOOK REVIEW
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Extraordinary introductory terror, beautiful to the eye and sure to delight younger horror enthusiasts.
What terrors lurk within your mouth? Jasper Rabbit knows.
“You have stumbled your way into the unknown.” The young bunny introduced in Reynolds and Brown’s Caldecott Honor–winning picture book, Creepy Carrots (2012), takes up Rod Serling’s mantle, and the fit is perfect. Mimicking an episode of The Twilight Zone, the book follows Charlie Marmot, an average kid with a penchant for the strange and unusual. He’s pleased when his tonsils become infected; maybe once they’re out he can take them to school for show and tell! That’s when bizarre things start to happen: Noises in the night. Slimy trails on his bedroom floor. And when Charlie goes in for his surgery, he’s told that the tonsils have disappeared from his throat; clearly something sinister is afoot. Those not yet ready for Goosebumps levels of horror will find this a welcome starter pack. Reynolds has perfected the tension he employed in his Creepy Tales! series, and partner in crime Brown imbues each illustration with both humor and a delicate undercurrent of dark foreshadowing. While the fleshy pink tonsils—the sole spot of color in this black-and-white world—aren’t outrageously gross, there’s something distinctly disgusting about them. And though the book stars cute, furry woodland creatures, the spooky surprise ending is 100% otherworldly—a marvelous moment of twisted logic.
Extraordinary introductory terror, beautiful to the eye and sure to delight younger horror enthusiasts. (Early chapter book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781665961080
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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