Disposable paperback chills from Jovial Bob Stine.
Stine’s Slappy returns to sneer and scare.
Everyone’s favorite demonic dummy, Slappy, welcomes readers to his world as he acts as narrator and host in this first of a new Goosebumps subseries. This time out of the case, Slappy is a gift to Ian on his 12th birthday from his father, who repairs dolls and had received Slappy as a job—but with no return address. Ian has been obsessed with ventriloquism and dummies since a trip on his 9th birthday to a doll museum. Bratty little sister Molly thinks the refurbished Slappy’s scary. Annoying cousins Jonny and Vinny want their turn at playing with the new toy. When a paper with six magic words that promise to bring Slappy to life slips out of the dummy’s sleeve, all heck breaks loose. The is-he/isn’t-he–alive plot gets recycled again (this is Slappy’s 10th novel-length outing) along with all of Slappy’s jokes (which are mostly insults and feel very antique). His legions of fans won’t mind; they never do. The language is simple, the chapters end in (often foolish) cliffhangers. Per established formula, this offers just a bit of gross and no real scares. Slappy is white, and there’s nothing to indicate that the rest of the cast is otherwise.
Disposable paperback chills from Jovial Bob Stine. (Humorous horror. 6-10)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-06828-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
In her first book for children since Ashanti to Zulu (1976, a Caldecott winner for illustrators Leo and Diane Dillon), Musgrove retells a beguiling Ashanti tale about the origin of kente cloth. Two gentle weavers discover by chance an astonishing, multicolored spider web in the forest. To their dismay—as much at the spider’s loss as their own—their efforts to carry it home for study destroy it. Returning to the spot the next day, however, the two find it re-spun, and its arachnid creator waiting to dance its patterns for them until they can create their own webs. In Cairns’s (Off to the Sweet Shores of Africa, 2000) big, vibrant illustrations the spider’s webs, and the cloth that they inspire, are symphonies of dazzling, saturated color, artfully set off both by lush tropical backgrounds, and the deep skin tones of the human figures. Like kente cloth itself, this will have a powerful visual impact on all who see it, and Musgrove adds value to her simply told narrative with a concluding discussion of her sources and the significance of the cloth’s various patterns. (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-98787-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
A laughing new librarian with "eyelashes as long as bird feathers" arrives at the creaky, almost-100-year-old library in Lockhart, Texas, and, to her surprise, the children do not use it because they say it's for grown-ups! Though RoseAleta buys new books and magazines, makes sure the library is buzzing, even leads a Christmas parade through the town square with a sign ("Come to the library!"), the children do not visit. She decides to create a space just for them, but nobody will contribute to the $20,000 required for the new space. "We need more than a bake sale," she says, and without further ado, she decides to camp out on the library's roof until the money is raised. Her meals are delivered via the electric company's bucket, and she even weathers a storm in her little tent, but the town rallies and the money is raised. Energetic, if slickly unsubtle drawings match the text and take advantage of the rooftop perspective with two vertically oriented double-page spreads of RoseAleta ascending and descending. Based on a true story, this will be popular with librarians and their readers. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8075-4512-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
