McCormick and Lazzell try to pass off frenetic bad behavior and annoying sibling rivalry as amusing antics and engaging character development in this graphic-style chapter book.
The focus is on family interactions and everyday activities, though the family in question is at least a little bit odd. Inexplicably, Mr. Pants, an orange cat with two distinctly different-sized eyes, Foot Foot, a smaller gray cat, and Grommy, a white kitten with a pink bow, have a human mother who sports stylized Laura Petrie hair and gives off a retro vibe. The plot focuses on big brother Mr. Pants, who nags his mom for an end-of-summer outing while whining his way through a trip to the “Fairy Princess Dream Factory” and a back-to-school shopping spree. Uneven attempts at injecting humor vary from adultcentric (Mom’s shoe addiction and Mr. Pants’ nicknames for his sister, which include My Left Foot and Agony of deFeet) to gross-out (Mr. Pants’ grungy room). Despite the graphic-novel format, there’s no sense of flow to the static artwork, which features panels of varying sizes in mostly muted shades of mustard, plum, gray and mauve with flat, spare settings and simply silhouetted characters. Pedestrian, predictable and totally tedious, this generic effort fails to appeal either visually or literarily. (Graphic novel. 7-9)
Pub Date: July 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8037-4007-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure.
It’s not truffles but doubloons that tickle this porcine wayfarer’s fancy.
Funke and Meyer make another foray into chapter-book fare after Emma and the Blue Genie (2014). Here, mariner Stout Sam and deckhand Pip eke out a comfortable existence on Butterfly Island ferrying cargo to and fro. Life is good, but it takes an unexpected turn when a barrel washes ashore containing a pig with a skull-and-crossbones pendant around her neck. It soon becomes clear that this little piggy, dubbed Julie, has the ability to sniff out treasure—lots of it—in the sea. The duo is pleased with her skills, but pride goeth before the hog. Stout Sam hands out some baubles to the local children, and his largess attracts the unwanted attention of Barracuda Bill and his nasty minions. Now they’ve pignapped Julie, and it’s up to the intrepid sailors to save the porker and their own bacon. The succinct word count meets the needs of kids looking for early adventure fare. The tale is slight, bouncy, and amusing, though Julie is never the piratical buccaneer the book’s cover seems to suggest. Meanwhile, Meyer’s cheery watercolors are as comfortable diagramming the different parts of a pirate vessel as they are rendering the dread pirate captain himself.
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure. (Adventure. 7-9)Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37544-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
From McDonald (Tundra Mouse, 1997, etc.), a haunting, dramatic glimpse of the Bone Keeper, a trickster with special transformational powers. Some say Bone Woman is a ghost; some envision her with three heads that view past, present, and future simultaneously. Most, however, call her the “Skeleton Maker” or “Keeper of Bones.” Chanting, shaking, moaning, and wailing, the Bone Keeper is frenzied as she sorts bones; not until the end of the book are readers told, in murmuring lines of free verse, what the Bone Keeper is creating in her mysterious desert cave. Out of the darkness, a wolf springs to life, leaps from the cave, howling, a symbol of resurrection and proof of life’s cyclical nature. Also keeping readers guessing as to the Bone Keeper’s final creation are Karas’s paintings; they, too, require that the final piece of the puzzle be placed before all are understood. The coloring and textures embody the desert setting in the evening, showing the fearsome cave and sandy shadows that wait to release the mystery of the bones. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-2559-9
Page Count: 30
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
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