Operating on the premise that there’s someone for everyone, the author of Lottie’s New Friend (1999) hooks up Lottie’s long-beaked Germanic acquaintance Dodo with a bitter, one-legged ex-helicopter pilot. Right. Though Captain Vince finally pops the question, it’s Dodo who first breaks the ice, rhapsodizing over the whirligigs in his front yard (“ ‘Just look at zem go round and round’ ”), feeding him seaweed sandwiches, and chattering on about her father’s glass eye. By summer they’re engaged, and aside from a few little complications—Dodo’s beauty bath the night before leaves her dyed bright green and phosphorescent—the wedding proceeds joyfully. Despite Mathers’s oddly shaped animal cast and her funny little details (Dodo spells out her acceptance with laundry), there’s an adult sensibility to much of this, but younger readers will respond to its warmth and good humor. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83018-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
An impending school visit by a celebrity chef sends budding cook Ollie into a tailspin. He and his classmates are supposed to bring a favorite family food for show and tell, but his family doesn’t have a clear choice—besides, his little sister Rosy doesn’t like much of anything. What to do? As in their previous two visits to Room 75, Kenah builds suspense while keeping the tone light, and Carter adds both bright notes of color and familiar home and school settings in her cartoon illustrations. Eventually, Ollie winkles favorite ingredients out of his clan, which he combines into a mac-and-cheese casserole with a face on top that draws delighted praise from the class’s renowned guest. As Ollie seems to do his kitchen work without parental assistance, a cautionary tip or two (and maybe a recipe) might not have gone amiss here, but the episode’s mouthwatering climax and resolution will guarantee smiles of contentment all around. (Easy reader. 6-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-053561-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up.
Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields.
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
