It doesn’t make a lick of sense, but it’s great value per page.
This book is the best cartoon that Hanna-Barbera never made.
Benji has more money than he can count. He may be even wealthier than Richie Rich or Scrooge McDuck, so he can spend all his time searching for lost dinosaurs and flying into space with an eccentric scientist. He earned his fortune by designing an app that generates excuses. (“I’m a kid” works in almost any situation.) As soon as Benji becomes a zillionaire, he buys himself a space station. “[I]t’s a great place to keep my zoo,” he tells an interviewer. If Benji had had a TV show back in the 1970s, fans would be fighting over his toys right now on eBay. Not a single moment of the story is plausible. Benji’s adventures are funnier than anything that happened to Jonny Quest or Josie and the Pussycats. The book wasn’t written in the 1970s, so the pace is much faster than Jonny Quest. On one page, the characters are building a chicken coop near an airplane hangar. On another, they’re saving the world from an asteroid. Benji looks exactly the way a cartoon character should, in any time period: one part Richie Rich, one part Scott Pilgrim. Vimislik’s illustrations are like everything in the book: not at all realistic but very, very funny.
It doesn’t make a lick of sense, but it’s great value per page. (Humorous adventure. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4342-6419-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Not the Best Riff on a Children’s Classic Ever, but good for the occasional chuckle. (Picture book. 7-9)
A twisted Richard Scarry–esque outing finds the creators’ “Uglydoll” figures serving in place of all the cute kitties and puppies and piggies.
Aimed at hip graduates of Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever (1963) and modeled after same, this visit to the Uglyverse invites readers to pore over big, busy, labeled assemblages of cartoon images while helping blobby Babo do a variety of things. They will search a city streetscape for his one-eyed unicorn, make stops at Ugly Port Harbor and elsewhere, tour a farmer’s market and a factory, then finally explore Babo’s home and neighborhood for such items as an “ebook reader,” a pitcher of “tea with interesting taste” and “pricey 1/6 scale action figures from Hong Kong.” Along with wisecracks in each relatively thematic spread’s introductory paragraph (“What’s a pleasure boat? Anything small that doesn’t sink”), the authors mix conventional descriptive words for common objects and people with a sardonic lexicon of terms both useful (“ATM number pad,” “retro game machine,” “parking enforcement officer”) and less so (“magnetic blender,” “canned moonlight”). Each is placed near a small, simply drawn item or garishly colored monster.
Not the Best Riff on a Children’s Classic Ever, but good for the occasional chuckle. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86434-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Definitely not a beginner’s ABC book, but the visual and print punnery will have elementary kids (and adults) guessing and...
Help! The letter E has fallen (down the stairs) and can’t get up!
Get ready to chortle over this zany alphabet book, which poses as a mystery with the letters as the cast of characters, aided by some exclamation points. When E takes a tumble in the alphabet’s crowded communal quarters, all the others are concerned. A takes action, as always, calling the ambulance and assembling the alphabet to determine who will take E’s place. “O, you're the obvious option because you’re so well-rounded.” An announcement is made on television not to “uso! E! until! sho! rocovors!” D and C go to Washington to alert the "govornmont," while the other letters talk it up on talk shows. Then A decides to take a road trip to spread the word: “Pack your bags, lottors. It’s timo for a journoy!” When E just doesn’t get better, the search is on for the culprit who’s broken the letter law. The comic illustrations and the comments from the letters totally exaggerate the cleverness and fun while amusingly emphasizing the importance of the letter E in our language. Lichtenheld’s co-author developed the basic concept in a video, Alphabet House, and it is a rich one.
Definitely not a beginner’s ABC book, but the visual and print punnery will have elementary kids (and adults) guessing and laughing. (Alphabet picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8118-7898-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
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