Crossing the ocean like the Child and her friends, this mildly precious 2011 tale joins a plethora of similar journeys...
Snow outside is no obstacle to world-spanning adventures inside for a child and her toys.
“Let’s go adventuring!” suggests “the Child.” Without further ado, she and companions Rocking Horse, Velvet Cat, Blue Elephant, Russian Doll, and Pirate are careening through snowy mountains, sailing over moonlit seas, snoozing in a desert oasis, and playing with monkeys in a jungle. At each stop the quick-thinking Child heroically delivers her party from an exciting threat—a toothy yeti, a sea monster, a wicked genie—that drives the travelers on, until at last a wild ride down a foaming waterfall deposits them all, safe and sleepy, back in the cozy playroom. In full-bleed jumbles of swirling, close-up action Docampo’s broad-faced figures change garb but not general form (Child, Pirate, and Russian Doll are all white) and switch expressions between glee and apprehension with each page turn. The comments each calls out (“I swim with mermaids and dive for pearls”; “But a wicked genie traps us in a deep, dark, [sic] cave!”) serve both to build scenarios and to preserve the breathless pacing. The peaceful closer leaves Child and all dozing intimately in each other’s laps or arms. The Child’s harem costume and the genie smack of Orientalism; the Pirate sports both a peg leg and an eye patch.
Crossing the ocean like the Child and her friends, this mildly precious 2011 tale joins a plethora of similar journeys tempting younger readers to embark on imaginary flights. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-910925-19-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Hutton Grove
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Series fans won’t be disappointed, but young readers and listeners who know only the original ditty may find this a touch...
Having eaten pretty much everything on land in 13 previous versions of the classic song, Colandro’s capaciously stomached oldster goes to sea.
Once again the original cumulative rhyme’s naturalistic aspects are dispensed with, so that not only doesn’t the old lady die, but neither do any of the creatures she consumes. Instead, the titular shark “left no mark,” a squid follows down the hatch to “float with the shark,” a fish to “dance with the squid,” an eel to “brighten the fish” (with “fluorescent light!” as a subsequent line explains), and so on—until at the end it’s revealed to be all pretending anyway on a visit to an aquarium. Likewise, though Lee outfits the bespectacled binge-eater with a finny tail and the requisite bra for most of the extended episode, she regains human feet and garb at the end. In the illustrations, the old lady and one of the two children who accompany her are pink-skinned; the other has frizzy hair and an amber complexion. A set of nature notes on the featured victims and a nautical seek-and-find that will send viewers back to the earlier pictures modestly enhance this latest iteration.
Series fans won’t be disappointed, but young readers and listeners who know only the original ditty may find this a touch bland. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-12993-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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