by Sasha Carr illustrated by Linda Neptune ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2016
While many children and lap readers will enjoy seeing a monkey learn the value of rest, this amusing tale of tired friends...
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In this debut picture book, making a boy responsible for someone else’s sleep encourages him to respect bedtime.
Dark-haired Ben and his only slightly smaller, prehensile-tailed monkey, Bungee, are best friends. “They liked to do everything together,” including draw pictures, build block towers, and eat pancakes (debut illustrator Neptune shows their differences in taste as Bungee scarfs down his banana-laden breakfast and Ben carefully measures fruit and syrup atop his stack). But what the two love best of all is bouncing. Ben feels tired after a long day of bouncing, but Bungee is still full of energy. When the monkey won’t let Ben get a good night’s sleep, the boy wakes up feeling miserable. The two friends become increasingly irritable and get into more and more arguments. Ben thinks of ways to keep Bungee from bouncing at night and finally creates rules they both must follow. That night, when Bungee tries to bounce again, Ben reminds him of the regulations and takes him back to his own bed—but the monkey keeps trying. It’s an arduous process, but finally, Bungee and Ben get enough worthwhile sleep that they can happily bounce together again. Neptune’s evocative, child-friendly images are filled to the brim with emotion, whether it’s elated bouncing or passionate arguing. Her added details to the story flesh out the spare text and provide plenty of extra laughs for young readers. Family sleep expert Carr (Make Life Better for Seniors, 2013) keeps the words simple and uses bubbles to have the characters convey more difficult ideas. She has deftly mastered the vocabulary and pacing needed for this reading level. In the book design, the larger text size for certain words (“BUNGEE!” “COWABUNGA!”) delightfully emphasizes them in a play for both humor and effect. While this strategy may not work for every kid, the rules Ben devises should be useful for parents of stay-awake children, who can pretend that one of their stuffed animals is a Bungee-like companion.
While many children and lap readers will enjoy seeing a monkey learn the value of rest, this amusing tale of tired friends should aid parents in discussing the importance of sleep.Pub Date: June 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-578-17607-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Off to Dreamland
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Pete Seeger & Paul Dubois Jacobs & illustrated by Michael Hays ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2001
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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by Neil Gaiman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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