written and illustrated by R.A. Mildren & developed by RAMDreams ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2012
Not much for storyline, but engagingly silly and tricky. Not to mention: bombs! (iPad game app. 5-8)
In this challenging set of visual puzzles, a dozen user-activated “bombs” blow a hapless robot from Hydropolope to Planet Kakalooki, leaving behind scrambled scenes to reassemble.
Conducted by a helium-voiced narrator, Tiki-Zin3 is propelled into space, past Saturn and the “ancient spacecraft Voyager I,” through a wormhole and on to an eventual planetfall. At each of his 12 stops, a bomb floats into view, explodes with a different combination of taps and leaves a jumbled pile of rocket parts or other space junk to drag back into their original positions. Other than going back to the opening screen to touch an index icon, there is no way to advance except by completing each reassembly in turn. Help in this task is provided through buttons that toggle back to the previous screens, as well as correctly positioned outlines that appear after several failed attempts to place pieces. In spite of this, most of the puzzles—particularly the blobby Kakalookian landscape and Tiki-Zin3’s garden, which has to be reconstructed in near-total darkness—are real tests of visual memory.
Not much for storyline, but engagingly silly and tricky. Not to mention: bombs! (iPad game app. 5-8)Pub Date: May 19, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: RAMDreams
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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by William Miller & illustrated by Rodney Pate ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2004
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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by Doreen Cronin & illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2005
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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