Dr. Lilliput’s tale is much like a spoonful of sugar: sweet but not actually beneficial, unless it helps the medicine go...
Dr. Lilliput might make a sick child laugh, but he won’t really help readers understand what’s happening when they get a cold.
Whenever the villain Virus and his Band of Bacteria strike, the good doctor knows just what to do. Young Linus has come down with a cold, so the miniature Dr. Lilliput flies his trusty ambulance right up into Linus’ nose to battle the infection. Linus’ immune system, personified as guards trapped inside the sticky mucus, cannot fight the virus until Dr. Lilliput sets them free with squirts of saline spray. The cartoon illustrations and interactive games will draw readers into the story, but they provide humorous treatment rather than factual information. It is never quite clear how the guards battle the virus or how camomile flowers help soothe Linus’ sore throat. Fact boxes, hidden behind info buttons, do not provide enough detail to answer these and other questions. The English-accented narration is smooth, but interactions can be sluggish. In addition, an inadvertent tilt of the iPad can cause the ambulance to disappear, leaving readers unable to get it to Linus’ nose. One fact box is in German, without English translation.
Dr. Lilliput’s tale is much like a spoonful of sugar: sweet but not actually beneficial, unless it helps the medicine go down. (Requires iPad 2 and above.) (iPad storybook app. 4-8)Pub Date: May 24, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: GESAMTKUNSTWERK Entertaiment GmbH
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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