Entertaining reassurance and lighthearted encouragement for those tough first moments of putting pencil to paper.
A student finds the way out of the clouds of writer’s block.
“Teacher says it’s time to write,” muses the brown-haired, light-skinned protagonist. Other students seem to be finding their way. One child has several crossed-out words; two more have begun stories. But “I peek outside— / it’s gloomy, gray. / Cloudy. / Like my brain today.” Thinking produces nothing at first; the pencil sits unused, the child’s head slumped into a folded arm. But then, “KER-PLINK! / I feel a drop. / One tiny thought.” Words, images, and phrases begin to fall like raindrops, and the illustrations gain color and energy as inspiration grows. The young writer dances, kicking up legs clad in striped tights and yellow boots as possibilities swirl around. The pages grow dark as in a big storm: “Huge ideas flowing fast!” And finally, after some joyful splashing in puddles of words, the sun appears, and a rainbow arches over a “flood of possibility.” The metaphor nicely captures the creative process—from the frustration of waiting for inspiration to the anticipation of something gathering in the distance to the sought-after deluge of ideas. A page of writing prompts and a glossary of writing terms follow. Pair this with Andrew Larson’s A Squiggly Story (2016), illustrated by Mike Lowery, or Peter H. Reynolds’ The Word Collector (2018) to stoke creative fires. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Entertaining reassurance and lighthearted encouragement for those tough first moments of putting pencil to paper. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-53411-148-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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IN THE NEWS
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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