It’s so cursory of plotline that even the fates of Penelope’s suitors go unmentioned, but it may be a good way to introduce...
A young gamer’s version of the life and adventures of Odysseus, with digital character cards to collect by taking on “challenges” at each stop along the way.
The compressed narrative itself, which appears on undecorated pull-down panels, looks and reads like an afterthought: “The fighting lasts for ten years. The Greeks win the war. Everyone can go home. Odysseus sets sail with his companions. ‘Phew, we’re out of here.’ ” Each of the 15 single-screen “chapters” is a cartoon scene—mostly of Odysseus and (while they last) his men confronting a monster or other hazard—with small animated movements. Around the edges are icons that toggle the lively narration and dramatic background music on or off, lead to a map of the Mediterranean with modern photos of each (putative) location, return readers to the home screen to choose among 11 available languages and open up a series of easy-to-work games. These last include concentration-style and spot-the-difference games, jigsaw puzzles, multiple-choice quizzes (“Where did Odysseus meet Penelope?”) and, for the sirens, an exercise in reproducing sequences of tones. Successful players earn “cards” that, when rubbed, reveal figures from the tale that can be tapped to make hidden descriptive captions appear.
It’s so cursory of plotline that even the fates of Penelope’s suitors go unmentioned, but it may be a good way to introduce or review the cast and the epic tale’s broad outlines. (Requires iOS 6.0 and above.) (iPad storybook/game app. 6-9)Pub Date: April 9, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Quelle Histoire
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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