Not quite the crowd pleaser that it could be.
An encounter with a wolf has remarkable effects on the vocabulary of a snarky little bunny.
In what amounts to a remake of Maurice Sendak’s Pierre with cruder language and an all-animal cast, an anthropomorphic rabbit responds to every request with the titular phrase—including a wolf’s “May I eat you?” Down the hatch goes the lippy lapin, and now the wolf’s only words are “Poo bum.” This signals the wolf’s villainy to the rabbit doctor summoned to help, and he proceeds to reach down his patient’s gullet and pull out his “little poo bum!” “Good heavens, Father! How dare you call me that? You know perfectly well my name is Simon.” The pithy narrative’s heavy typeface accords well with both the level of humor and the illustrations’ thick, simply drawn lines and broad swathes of opaque primary hues. Originally published in 2011 in New Zealand (and much reprinted since), the episode first appeared on this continent in 2015 (from another publisher) as Poop-di-doop!—a version of the delightfully daring epithet that American audiences may find more immediately appealing than the original. At least the closing twist, in which the rabbit returns to form with “Fart!” in response to a parental order to brush his teeth, requires no translation.
Not quite the crowd pleaser that it could be. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-877467-96-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gecko Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Since the shelves are crowded with titles in the preparing-for-the-new-baby genre, choose this only if there is room for one...
Searching for a new family member, a little boy considers a number of animal choices before finding something "just perfect."
“Mommy, Daddy and I made three, but we thought we might like four.” Cuddled between his mother and father on the porch swing, this observant child narrates the story of finding an addition to the family. With a spare storyline and rich, warm illustrations, Marinsky parades through a number of ill-fitting animal choices. The dog sheds too much. Walking the turtle takes too long. The litany of unsatisfactory animals quickly veers into the absurd with a dolphin swimming in the living room and the kitchen being destroyed by an octopus. The young boy, found in every picture, personally witnesses the reason each animal is not selected. At last, the perfect addition is found, in the person of a baby sibling the little boy addresses directly. The combination of text and image may confuse, as it slips in and out of the surreal. Overall, the whole book has a calm tone, and there is a gentle kindness in the older brother that appeals; in the last picture, he reads an animal book to the new baby.
Since the shelves are crowded with titles in the preparing-for-the-new-baby genre, choose this only if there is room for one with its sophisticated tone in both voice and image. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-56792-428-2
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Midge, Pip, Dot—the Marx Sisters.
It’s the third outing for the cockamamie Loopy Coop hens.
Midge, Pip and Dot, three terminally gullible and mildly delusional hens, are taking in the shade under an apple tree. An apple falls, startling them. What could that be about, they wonder? Very likely, they decide, it is a fox up in the tree throwing apples down at them. When more apples continue to rain down, Dot, who is feeling intrepid this day, decides to climb the ladder and see what’s up. What she finds is that apples fall of their own accord and that the view is sublime. The pure transcendence infects the hens. “I feel like I am an apple,” says Pip. “I feel like letting go,” says Dot. And Stoeke lets them do just that. They drop like rocks—or apples, it is true—their chicken wings as useful as bicycles in the sky. They sprawl in the shade of the tree once more, now knocked dizzy from their crash landing, but giddy: “That was fun!” “I love being an apple!” “Let’s do it again!” Here is an unconventional and gratifying take on “letting go.” The story, in all its brevity, subverts any moralizing. If there is any didacticism present, it is that letting go needn’t only be a taxing rite of passage; it can be sheer, even mystical joy.
Midge, Pip, Dot—the Marx Sisters. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3768-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
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