Fans of fart jokes and humor may be able to overlook the flaws (such as the paucity of intelligent female characters) in...
Prince Carlos Charles Charming dreams of becoming a jester, but his parents want him to do “princely things” like slay dragons.
King Carmine is “a good king” and “a good dad…always loving and patient” with his son. But he hardly ever laughs. When Prince Carlos performs his comedy routine to try to cheer up his father, Carlos doesn’t succeed in eliciting a laugh: Carlos is meant to be a prince, not a jester. After obediently donning his suit of armor, Carlos finds solace in the company of Jack the Jester, who shares Carlos’ affinity for scatological humor. But his consolation is short-lived: His mother, “big woman” Queen Cora (she has “an even bigger personality”), finds and compels him to train with Prince Gilbert the Gallant, who is kind but aggravatingly perfect. Carlos’ torment is cut short but then increased when his father—even though he knows that Carlos is ill-prepared—sends him out to slay a dragon. Carlos comforts himself with a comedy routine as he heads toward his fate, and the noise draws the attention of the dragon, who, unsurprisingly (to readers, anyway), is not what Carlos expected. Spot illustrations portray Jack the Jester and Prince Gilbert as brown-skinned, while Carlos and his father share “the same light tan skin.”
Fans of fart jokes and humor may be able to overlook the flaws (such as the paucity of intelligent female characters) in this quick read. (Fantasy. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14238-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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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