Snapperwhippers aren’t the only readers who will find this equally delumptious as a dictionary, a source of inspiration, and...
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by Roald Dahl ; illustrated by Quentin Blake ; edited by Susan Rennie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2016
Wordplay has its day in this extra-usual compilation of lexicographical delights drawn from Dahl’s works.
“ONLY REALLY INTERESTING WORDS are allowed in this dictionary,” writes compiler Rennie, and the contents cleave to that stricture with a wacksey (“splendidly huge”) mix of those conventional but nonetheless gloriumptious locutions (like “aardvark” or “sneeze,” printed in black) and wondercrump original coinages (in blue) with which the master’s prose is laced. Every entry comes with a brief definition and one or more sentences from a specified work quoted to demonstrate usage. Each also includes part of speech, alternate forms, and, very often, either cross references (“Another mushious fruit is the snozzberry”) or a linguistic excursion into grammar, the history of words, real-world cognates, or derivations. One frequently recurring extra feature challenges would-be versifiers to find “Ringbelling Rhymes,” and another offers examples and guidelines for making any writing zippfizz along by “Gobblefunking with Words.” Major characters, creatures, and candies also earn diddly (“individual or distinct”) slots in the alphabet. That the pages are positively festooned with Blake’s color cartoon illustrations, all drawn from the novels, just puts the golden ticket into the Wonka bar.
Snapperwhippers aren’t the only readers who will find this equally delumptious as a dictionary, a source of inspiration, and a way of revisiting a shelf of phizz-whizzing classics. (Reference. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-19-273645-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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by Anna Claybourne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2017
A compendium of paranormal doings, natural horrors, and eerie wonders worldwide and (in several senses) beyond.
Maladroit title aside (“…in Bed” would make more sense, cautionwise), this collection of hauntings, cryptids, natural and historical mysteries, and general titillation (“Vampire bats might be coming for you!”) offers a broad array of reasons to stay wide awake. Arranged in no discernible order the 60-plus entries include ghostly sightings in the White House and various castles, body-burrowing guinea worms, the Nazca lines of Peru, Mothman and Nessie, the hastily abandoned city of Pripyat (which, thanks to the Chernobyl disaster, may be habitable again…in 24,000 years), monarch-butterfly migrations, and diverse rains of fish, frogs, fireballs, and unidentified slime. Each is presented in a busy whirl of narrative blocks, photos, graphics, side comments, and arbitrary “Fright-O-Meter” ratings (Paris’ “Creepy Catacombs” earn just a “4” out of 10 and black holes a “3,” but the aforementioned aerial amphibians a full “10”). The headers tend toward the lurid: “Jelly From Space,” “Zombie Ants,” “Mongolian Death Worm.” Claybourne sprinkles multiple-choice pop quizzes throughout for changes of pace.
A rich source of terrors both real and manufactured, equally effective in broad daylight or beneath the bedcovers. (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2841-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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by Wafa’ Tarnowska & illustrated by Carole Hénaff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2010
In a large, handsome format, Tarnowska offers six tales plus an abbreviated version of the frame story, retold in formal but contemporary language and sandwiched between a note on the Nights’ place in her childhood in Lebanon and a page of glossary and source notes. Rather than preserve the traditional embedded structure and cliffhanger cutoffs, she keeps each story discrete and tones down the sex and violence. This structure begs the question of why Shahriyar lets Shahrazade [sic] live if she tells each evening’s tale complete, but it serves to simplify the reading for those who want just one tale at a time. Only the opener, “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” is likely to be familiar to young readers; in others a prince learns to control a flying “Ebony Horse” by “twiddling” its ears, contending djinn argue whether “Prince Kamar el Zaman [or] Princess Boudour” is the more beautiful (the prince wins) and in a Cinderella tale a “Diamond Anklet” subs for the glass slipper. Hénaff’s stylized scenes of domed cityscapes and turbaned figures add properly whimsical visual notes to this short but animated gathering. (Folktales. 10-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84686-122-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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