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
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Floyd and Denise update “The Tortoise and the Hare” for primary readers, captioning each soft-focus, semi-rural scene with a short, simple sentence or two. Rabbit proposes running to school, while his friend Turtle takes the bus: no contest at first, as the bus makes stop after deliberate stop, but because Rabbit pauses at a pushcart for a snack, a fresh-looking Turtle greets his panting, disheveled friend on the school steps. There is no explicit moral, but children will get the point—and go on to enjoy Margery Cuyler’s longer and wilder Road Signs: A Harey Race with a Tortoise (p. 957). (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-202679-7
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
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