Timothy and his classmates are back in this follow-up to Timothy Goes to School (2001) and they are as heartwarming and true-to-life as ever. Wells has a knack for portraying every character typically found in an elementary-school classroom: the bully, the spoiled princess, the quiet one, the less-than-physically-perfect, and captures their interactions perfectly. Six short vignettes covering such familiar topics as science projects, costumes, choosing the right birthday present, schoolyard sports, and teasing are accompanied by her trademark adorable bunny, cat, and beaver children in full-color spot illustrations. Fritz tries to build a particle accelerator out of toilet-paper tubes, even though the only one that’s ever been attempted cost $11 billion and still didn’t work; Nora must eat a whole box of Weeds & Seeds cereal to get the prize in the box for Yoko’s birthday present; Charles won’t give in to Claude’s bullying over who gets to be a bald eagle for Bird Day; Doris learns that health and strength are more important than being thin; Timothy and Claude have some baking mishaps during a measuring experiment; and Grace learns to be part of a team when she joins a few classmates inside the centipede costume during the Bug Week parade. Each story has a happy ending, and the trials the characters go through will be familiar to readers, letting them know that no matter what happens on the playground or in the classroom, they’re not alone. Be prepared to laugh out loud. (Fiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-670-03554-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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