Ruby is a little girl with an active fantasy life: Her pretend full-time job, twins and TV chat show keep her well-occupied and content, but all it takes is one well-delivered dis from her mean-girl neighbors to rock Ruby’s world. Turning to retail therapy, she buys a budgerigar best friend—fine, feathered, but flightless—which she names after her chewing gum (go figure). In the face of snotty suggestions that her bird is rather an oddball, Ruby launches elaborate but unsuccessful efforts to get him aloft. Eventually, of course, she comes to realize that it doesn’t really matter, and the book ends with Ruby and Bubbles walking off into the sunset (really), while those cutting queen-bees get their karmic reward, being pooped on by birds that do fly. Winstead’s watercolor-and-ink illustrations, mostly busy vignettes, are a sort of winsome blend of Tim Burton, Eloise and Bratz. Accompanied by typeface that sometimes varies to reflect the text, they are comic and cute enough, but they can’t quite get this lightweight story off the ground. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-8037-3024-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Using just 85 words to go with delicate, woodsy scenes defined by washes of greens and yellows behind lots of short, fine pen strokes, Gorbachev sends a very small turtle on a quest to return a very large, windblown pink hat to its rightful owner. Even newly emergent readers will be comfortable with the time-honored question-and-answer structure, as well as the mild silliness here. After Turtle asks three obviously unsuitable candidates—a mouse, a crocodile, and a beaver—if the hat is theirs, its true owner, Elephant, gratefully reclaims it. “You are welcome!” Turtle shouts happily to close the episode off. A simple, repetitive pleaser for young children who find the Berenstains’ primers a bit too frenetic. (Easy reader. 4-6)
Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-053434-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A conventional message, served up with unusual simplicity and low-key humor. At five, Enrico can make a mean sardine-in-lobster-jelly sandwich—not as gross as it might seem, as everyone in the childlike pictures is a cat—but he hasn’t acquired the knack for making friends at school. After several failed attempts to fit in, he takes his little brother Chico’s advice, just to be himself, and in no time is volleying a tennis ball on the playground with a new best buddy, Pepe. Middleton lays expressive, neatly trimmed paper figures on monochrome-painted or silk-screened backgrounds to create appropriately elemental visuals. The Large Life Lesson gets a bit of individual flavor with the Latino character names and a Spanish word or two—but theme-wise it’s still one among many, and less likely to ease the anxieties of prospective first graders on its own than, say, Jeanne Willis’s I Hate School (see below). (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8037-3017-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004
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