Brains overcome brawn once again in this laugh-out-loud encounter between a huge, leering burglar and a minuscule canine guardian. Bertie’s ferocious grimace and spiked collar fill the first two spreads, but, as the third reveals, he’s called a “watch dog” because he’s actually about the size of a Rolex. Nonetheless, when the hulking second-story man breaks in, Bertie attacks. Laughing, the intruder shows that he can run faster, bite harder, and, with Bertie egging him on, bark louder—loudly enough, in fact, to bring the police. Robins (The Thank You Book, not reviewed, etc.) catches the encounter in loosely drawn cartoon close-ups of a scruffy, page-filling robber and his annoyed-looking mini-nemesis. Surrounded by the ribbon of his shiny new “HERO” medal, Bertie gets the last laugh, crowing, “ ‘I win!’ ” Young readers will enthusiastically agree. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1385-1
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A child who insists on having MORE of everything gets MORE than she can handle.
Demanding young Moxie Jo is delighted to discover that pushing the button on a stick she finds in the yard doubles anything she points to. Unfortunately, when she points to her puppy, Max, the button gets stuck—and in no time one dog has become two, then four, then eight, then….Readers familiar with the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” or Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona will know how this is going to go, and Masse obliges by filling up succeeding scenes with burgeoning hordes of cute yellow puppies enthusiastically making a shambles of the house. McKellar puts an arithmetical spin on the crisis—“The number of pups exponentially grew: / They each multiplied times a factor of 2!” When clumsy little brother Clark inadvertently intervenes, Moxie Jo is left wiser about her real needs (mostly). An appended section uses lemons to show how exponential doubling quickly leads to really big numbers. Stuart J. Murphy’s Double the Ducks (illustrated by Valeria Petrone, 2002) in the MathStart series explores doubling from a broader perspective and includes more backmatter to encourage further study, but this outing adds some messaging: Moxie Jo’s change of perspective may give children with sharing issues food for thought. She and her family are White; her friends are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Doubles down on a basic math concept with a bit of character development. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-101-93386-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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