by Sally Rippin ; illustrated by Alisa Coburn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2017
Brimming with enthusiasm, emphasized words, and silly sounds, these cheery books will have emergent readers clamoring for...
The latest installment in the Billie’s Super-Duper Adventures series explores veterinarian dramatic play.
Billie is normally a preschooler set on high speed. She often bounds into school, ready for adventure. But on this particular day, the little white girl limps in, full of woe. She has a scrape on her knee. Brown-skinned Mr. Simon sympathizes with her pain and shows her that Teddy (a stuffed bear) also has an injury. Quick as a wink, Billie and her sidekick pal, Jack, also white, rush off in the cardboard ambulance. As they speed into a cloud of imagination, the classroom instantly transforms into an animal hospital with Dr. Billie and Nurse Jack treating a wide assortment of critters—even a large hippo that has eaten too much ice cream. True to child-doctor sensibilities, many an ailment can be healed with a superabundance of bandages and a spoonful of medicine. Billie and Jack also award star stickers to very brave patients. In the simultaneously publishing Billie’s Outer Space Adventure, Billie and Jack explore Planet Pom-Pom—of course coming up with a “super-duper idea” to save the day when they come across a stranded space tourist. The addition of a few new characters of various skin tones in both books is welcomed.
Brimming with enthusiasm, emphasized words, and silly sounds, these cheery books will have emergent readers clamoring for more. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61067-607-6
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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by Sally Rippin ; illustrated by Lucinda Gifford
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by Sally Rippin ; illustrated by Sally Rippin
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by Sally Rippin ; illustrated by Alisa Coburn
by Laura Ripes & illustrated by Aaron Zenz ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2012
Fun enough once through, but not much more.
A pint-sized sleuth tracks a purple underground monster.
When Mom scrapes the family's uneaten spaghetti into the sink, young Sammy Sanders hears strange slurping sounds. He becomes "77 percent convinced" that a spaghetti-slurping serpent lives in his sewer, and can't get to sleep. The next morning, Sammy and his little sister Sally investigate. There are meatballs and strands of limp spaghetti around the manhole cover! Sammy, whose round glasses make the whites of his eyes look as enormous as an owl's, can barely contain his excitement. After he removes the cover, Sally slips on some sauce and lands in the sewer, becoming a smelly sludgy mess. Sammy's left to investigate alone and comes up with a brilliant idea. Late that night, he sneaks out of the house with a salty snack for himself and a bowl of spaghetti for the serpent. But he falls asleep, and the huge serpent slithers up to the scrumptious spaghetti. Slurping sounds startle Sammy awake; he's face-to-face with the monster. There's just one thing to do: Share! Sammy' salty snack earns him a friend for life. And that night, he sleeps soundly, 100% sure that there's a serpent in his sewer. Zenz's illustrations, in Prismacolor colored pencil, look generic, but Ripes' yarn has pace and phonetic crackle.
Fun enough once through, but not much more. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7614-6101-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
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by Savannah Guthrie & Allison Oppenheim ; illustrated by Eva Byrne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2017
Skip it
This book wants to be feminist.
Princess Penelope Pineapple, illustrated as a white girl with dark hair and eyes, is the Amelia Bloomer of the Pineapple Kingdom. She has dresses, but she prefers to wear pants as she engages in myriad activities ranging from yoga to gardening, from piloting a plane to hosting a science fair. When it’s time for the Pineapple Ball, she imagines wearing a sparkly pants outfit, but she worries about Grand Lady Busyboots’ disapproval: “ ‘Pants have no place on a lady!’ she’d say. / ‘That’s how it has been, and that’s how it shall stay.’ ” In a moment of seeming dissonance between the text and art, Penny seems to resolve to wear pants, but then she shows up to the ball in a gown. This apparent contradiction is resolved when the family cat, Miss Fussywiggles, falls from the castle into the moat and Princess Penelope saves her—after stripping off her gown to reveal pink, flowered swimming trunks and a matching top. Impressed, Grand Lady Busyboots resolves that princesses can henceforth wear whatever they wish. While seeing a princess as savior rather than damsel in distress may still seem novel, it seems a stretch to cast pants-wearing as a broadly contested contemporary American feminist issue. Guthrie and Oppenheim’s unimaginative, singsong rhyme is matched in subtlety by Byrne’s bright illustrations.
Skip it . (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2603-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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by Savannah Guthrie & Allison Oppenheim illustrated by Eva Byrne
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