Start your engines for some energetic fun.
A cat participates in a race car adventure, earning the respect of her feline friends.
Asta is strolling through an alley at night when a group of cats zooms by in race cars, calling her a “slowpoke.” When she learns about a race on Saturday at Kibble Hill, she gathers her tools and blowtorch and transforms her washing machine into a functional if blocky racing vehicle. After a test drive down Mount Tuna Road, it’s off to the races for four fast-paced spreads. Asta is the first (“by a whisker!”) to cross the finish line. Cat lovers and fans of auto racing, in particular, will get a kick out of seeing the cats’ creatively rendered vehicles: Ludlow drives a melon-shaped car; Marvin steers a motorized shopping cart; and Professor Kim has built an impressive, elaborate cat-shaped vehicle that she controls from inside a bubble top. There’s much humor in seeing the determined cats, some in racing goggles, fly down the track that loops through town on spreads dominated by vivid oranges, reds, and yellows. Detailed jokes await observant readers, such as the presence of a “Cat-olic Church” on the spread showing the racing map. The book’s abrupt rim shot ending leaves readers wondering if Asta dreamed it all, a resolution that may disappoint some readers who experience a vicarious thrill in Asta’s win.
Start your engines for some energetic fun. (Picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-838740-30-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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