Compassionate and imaginative (Picture book. 5-9)
A young fox wonders how he can discover what makes him unique in this big world.
After Fox wakes up he asks himself, “I wonder if I have a feature / that sets me ’part from other creatures?” Leaving his mother asleep in their den, he decides to find out. Fox recalls that whenever he has had any problem his first instinct is to sniff the problem out. He figures it must be his nose that makes him special, until he meets a hog with such a spectacular nose his own seems puny in comparison. The kindly hog agrees his nose is useful, but he yearns for a longer neck—rather like Fox’s. Encouraged, Fox continues feeling good about his neck until he meets…a giraffe! The story continues with Fox meeting creature after creature, all of which have better attributes than he. Tail down, he goes home and tells mother, “This day has been the worstest ever!” Mammy Fox consoles him but also guides him to understand how his remarkable journey has taught him important life lessons. McDonagh’s gentle rhyming couplets weave a sense of warmth into this Irish import, which is longer than what many North American readers will be accustomed to, frequently offering eight four-line stanzas in a double-page spread. O’Brien’s evocative illustrations balance the tone of the text. Young readers who wonder about their own individuality will easily identify with Fox’s quest.
Compassionate and imaginative (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-84730-682-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Veritas Publications/Dufour Editions
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent.
Published in magazines, never seen since / Now resurrected for pleasure intense / Versified episodes numbering four / Featuring Marco, and Horton and more!
All of the entries in this follow-up to The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories (2011) involve a certain amount of sharp dealing. Horton carries a Kwuggerbug through crocodile-infested waters and up a steep mountain because “a deal is a deal”—and then is cheated out of his promised share of delicious Beezlenuts. Officer Pat heads off escalating, imagined disasters on Mulberry Street by clubbing a pesky gnat. Marco (originally met on that same Mulberry Street) concocts a baroque excuse for being late to school. In the closer, a smooth-talking Grinch (not the green sort) sells a gullible Hoobub a piece of string. In a lively introduction, uber-fan Charles D. Cohen (The Seuss, The Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss, 2002) provides publishing histories, places characters and settings in Seussian context, and offers insights into, for instance, the origin of “Grinch.” Along with predictably engaging wordplay—“He climbed. He grew dizzy. His ankles grew numb. / But he climbed and he climbed and he clum and he clum”—each tale features bright, crisply reproduced renditions of its original illustrations. Except for “The Hoobub and the Grinch,” which has been jammed into a single spread, the verses and pictures are laid out in spacious, visually appealing ways.
Fans both young and formerly young will be pleased—100 percent. (Picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-38298-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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