This debut’s imaginative premise leads to intermittent flashes of wit and quirky humor, but promising material is left...
A lonely girl befriends the terrified tapir she finds stranded in a big, busy city.
Mango Allsorts can leap from the high diving board, do karate kicks, and apply the Sicilian defense in chess (mastering the clarinet remains a work in progress). The pale-skinned, black-haired girl cooks buttered noodles for her father when he’s had an especially trying day. Returning home from her karate lesson one day, she finds traffic at a standstill because a curled-up tapir is lying in the crosswalk. Mango scolds the clueless onlookers, then invites him home with her for banana pancakes. His name is Bambang, and fleeing a tiger has led him far from home. Friendship blossoms: they jump from a high dive; she loses and finds him more than once; they encounter an unscrupulous Collector of the Unusual. The droll and lively opening raises expectations that remain largely unfulfilled. Lessons are learned as Mango and Bambang trade parent and child roles. The story shifts between their points of view, with occasional interruptions from the intrusive narrator, who asks readers irrelevant, uninteresting questions (“What is your nearest public pool like?”), deflating the effervescent fantasy with ho-hum realism and plodding didacticism. Yet readers will learn more about tapirs from the ample, expressive illustrations than the text. Portraying the pair as a charming duo, the art lightens the tone and provides consistency lacking elsewhere.
This debut’s imaginative premise leads to intermittent flashes of wit and quirky humor, but promising material is left unexplored. (Fantasy. 6-9)Pub Date: June 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8226-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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