Jenny may not be that unusual as a young lady, but the way the app brings readers into her point of view and shows other...
The shapes of the world are seen very differently by an unusual girl with a common name.
Jenny Jones, who has a name shared by “possibly millions,” is like any girl except for one big difference: Wherever there are circles, she sees squares. Whether it’s a pizza, a bowl of fruit or even a Ferris wheel, Jenny sees corners and blocks where others see round shapes. She takes time picking out these shapes in panoramic pages; readers can scroll horizontally and find them in puzzle pages that reward sharp eyes. The art imagines Jenny’s world as a heightened reality in which houses look like giant slices of bread and everyone wears bright, warm colors. The narration of the story is nicely paced and distinct, page navigation is easily managed with a pull-down curtain rope, and the ending, in which her family simply accepts Jenny’s skewed view, supports the kind notion that we all see things in different ways. The story gets repetitive as it closes, but the pages themselves are lively, featuring a feline named Chairman Miao who’s there to help advance the story when readers gets stuck on puzzles.
Jenny may not be that unusual as a young lady, but the way the app brings readers into her point of view and shows other ways to see objects otherwise taken for granted certainly makes her stand out. (requires iPad 2+) (iPad storybook app. 5-12)Pub Date: May 15, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: PaperPlaneCo
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
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