This protean holiday tale’s third redaction (1st edition, 1957, illustrated by Adrienne Adams; revised edition, 1983, re-illustrated by Adams) has been dumbed down “for a new generation” (as the Publisher’s Note has it) and paired to stiff, coarsely painted collages constructed in part from clipped photos and patterned wallpaper. One year the Easter Bunny oversleeps his appointed gig and discovers that no one wants painted eggs on Mother’s Day, or, later, July 4th or Halloween. (The previous edition’s “Early in May the rain stopped. The sun shone into the Easter bunny’s burrow and woke him up. He yawned and stretched, and put on his new clothes because, of course, he thought it was Easter time,” has been reduced to: “That month it rained every day; then in May the sun came out. The bunny woke up. Yawn! Stretch!” Santa, however, welcomes him, puts him to work with the elves, and finally gives him an antique alarm clock so that he’ll never oversleep again. Saaf (What Do Ducks Dream?, p. 544, etc.) dresses the Easter Bunny in striped pajamas, and applies white paint so thinly over the brown undercoating that the rabbit’s unclothed parts have a smudged, raddled look. Altogether, a charming minor classic in tawdry new dress. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-029645-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet iteration of the “Big Bad Wolf Mellows Out” theme. Here, an old wolf does some soul searching and then learns to like vegetable stew after a half-frozen lamb appears on his doorstep, falls asleep in his arms, then wakes to give him a kiss. “I can’t eat a lamb who needs me! I might get heartburn!” he concludes. Clad in striped leggings and a sleeveless pullover decorated with bands of evergreens, the wolf comes across as anything but dangerous, and the lamb looks like a human child in a fleecy overcoat. No dreams are likely to be disturbed by this book, but hardened members of the Oshkosh set might prefer the more credible predators and sense of threat in John Rocco’s Wolf! Wolf! (March 2007) or Delphine Perrot’s Big Bad Wolf and Me (2006). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58925-067-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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