Horus wears jeans, a striped shirt, and a backpack like any other first grader, but he travels to school in a flying cup (flying saucers are so last century), because his school is on Mars. The students are different types of Martians: some green, some blue, some polka-dotted—and all funny. Corey, who made an auspicious debut with You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer! (2000), offers Episode 1 of the First Graders from Mars series, which describes Horus’s reluctance to leave his martiangarten days behind to move on to first grade. He slurps his soup with the wrong tentacle, tangles with an overly confident Martian girl named Tera, and lands in the Beta reading group (rather than the Alpha group with nemesis Tera). Corey works some simple Martian-style language and clever puns into her story: the Martian kids sit in thinking capsules instead of desks, and the floating, polka-dotted teacher has eyes in the front and back of her head, and on both sides, too. Additional layers of punny humor enhance the full-color, cartoon-style illustrations by Teague (The Great Gracie Chase, p. 188, etc.) who finds something clever to add on every page. Horus has the real fears of any entering first grader, and this story will be popular with kindergarten and first-grade teachers and students, who will be waiting for Episode 2. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-439-26220-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Floyd and Denise update “The Tortoise and the Hare” for primary readers, captioning each soft-focus, semi-rural scene with a short, simple sentence or two. Rabbit proposes running to school, while his friend Turtle takes the bus: no contest at first, as the bus makes stop after deliberate stop, but because Rabbit pauses at a pushcart for a snack, a fresh-looking Turtle greets his panting, disheveled friend on the school steps. There is no explicit moral, but children will get the point—and go on to enjoy Margery Cuyler’s longer and wilder Road Signs: A Harey Race with a Tortoise (p. 957). (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-202679-7
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
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