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YOU'RE PULLING MY LEG!

Name: YOU'RE PULLING MY LEG!
Author: Pat Street
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2135-0

400 HUMAN-BODY SAYINGS FROM HEAD TO TOE

by Pat Street & Eric Brace ; illustrated by Eric Brace ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2016

Knee-slappers on every page for tenderfoot readers and writers.

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From “lamebrain” to “feet of clay,” a heaping handful of English idioms, similes, metaphors, and other colorful turns of phrase.

Using Street’s There’s a Frog in My Throat! 440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me (2003, illustrated by Loreen Leedy) as a model, Street and Brace group their entries by body part and pair each to a literal-minded alternative or explanation: “She knit her brows. She frowned in concentration”; “I’m hip. I know what you mean.” Brace jumps up the humor with spreads of demonstrative cartoon figures—including animals, animate internal organs, and even zombie bunnies—whose actions and comments are intended to further clarify the meanings. And they usually do, though the vomiting ticker by “heartsick” misses the boat, and having a lad shout “Holy cuss!” next to “potty mouth” is a yellow-bellied decision. If a few miscast homophones like “back to the drawing board” and “head of lettuce” tiptoe in, there are still lips zipped, buttoned, and sealed; fingers crossed, pointed, butter, light, and worked to the bone; hearts whole, half, soft and hard, black, cold, gold, and more to enrich both spoken and written tongues. Not to mention zombie bunnies biting off heads and picking brains.

Knee-slappers on every page for tenderfoot readers and writers. (index) (Informational picture book. 6-9)

Pub Date: March 15, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-8234-2135-0

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Holiday House

Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
THERE’S A FROG IN MY THROAT!
by Loreen Leedy & Pat Street & illustrated by Loreen Leedy

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BOOKMARKS ARE PEOPLE TOO!

From the Here's Hank series , Vol. 1

by Henry Winkler ; Lin Oliver ; illustrated by Scott Garrett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2014

An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda.

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Hank Zipzer, poster boy for dyslexic middle graders everywhere, stars in a new prequel series highlighting second-grade trials and triumphs.

Hank’s hopes of playing Aqua Fly, a comic-book character, in the upcoming class play founder when, despite plenty of coaching and preparation, he freezes up during tryouts. He is not particularly comforted when his sympathetic teacher adds a nonspeaking role as a bookmark to the play just for him. Following the pattern laid down in his previous appearances as an older child, he gets plenty of help and support from understanding friends (including Ashley Wong, a new apartment-house neighbor). He even manages to turn lemons into lemonade with a quick bit of improv when Nick “the Tick” McKelty, the sneering classmate who took his preferred role, blanks on his lines during the performance. As the aforementioned bully not only chokes in the clutch and gets a demeaning nickname, but is fat, boastful and eats like a pig, the authors’ sensitivity is rather one-sided. Still, Hank has a winning way of bouncing back from adversity, and like the frequent black-and-white line-and-wash drawings, the typeface is designed with easy legibility in mind.

An uncomplicated opener, with some funny bits and a clear but not heavy agenda. (Fiction. 7-9)

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-448-48239-2

Page Count: 128

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap

Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CASE OF THE STRANGE SPLASH
by Henry Winkler & Lin Oliver ; illustrated by Dan Santat

- BOOK REVIEW
HOLLYWOOD VS. THE GALAXY
by Henry Winkler & Lin Oliver ; illustrated by Ethan Nicolle

- BOOK REVIEW
LIGHTS, CAMERA, DANGER!
by Henry Winkler & Lin Oliver

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THE ULTIMATE BOOK OF CITIES

by Anne-Sophie Baumann ; illustrated by Didier Balicevic ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2017

There’s lots to see and do in this big city.

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A set of panoramic views of the urban environment: inside and out, above and belowground, at street level and high overhead.

Thanks to many flaps, pull tabs, spinners, and sliders, viewers can take peeks into stores and apartments, see foliage change through the seasons in a park, operate elevators, make buildings rise and come down, visit museums and municipal offices, take in a film, join a children’s parade, marvel as Christmas decorations go up—even look in on a wedding and a funeral. Balicevic populates each elevated cartoon view with dozens of tiny but individualized residents diverse in age, skin tone, hair color and style, dress, and occupation. He also adds such contemporary touches as an electrical charging station for cars, surveillance cameras, smartphones, and fiber optic cables. Moreover, many flaps conceal diagrammatic views of infrastructure elements like water treatment facilities and sources of electrical power or how products ranging from plate glass and paper to bread, cheese, and T-shirts are manufactured (realistically, none of the workers in the last are white). Baumann’s commentary is largely dispensable, but she does worthily observe on the big final pop-up spread that cities are always changing—often, nowadays, becoming more environmentally friendly.

There’s lots to see and do in this big city. (Informational novelty. 6-9)