The waters are left a bit muddied, but this is still a serviceable reminder that “yell, run, and tell” is a good start.
A bad bunny figures significantly in this twist on the original “stranger danger” tale.
Primed by her mom to “yell, run, and tell!” if she meets a stranger in the wood, Little Red Riding Hood, depicted as a little white girl, flees a sniffling wolf but confides to a sympathetic rabbit that she’s going to Grandma’s: “Mom says it’s not safe for her to be all alone, especially when she’s got so much jewelry!” Rabbit—small, fuzzy, big-eyed, and sporting a cute flowered handbag in Price’s lighthearted illustrations—gallantly offers to accompany her. When they arrive and find the wolf in Grandma’s bed and nightclothes, Little Red assumes the worst. Then Grandma strolls in with a tea tray, followed by a “policeman” who seizes the rabbit and empties piles of stolen goods from the bag. “This is the famous Bunny Burglar. We’ve been after him for ages.” (The wolf, it turns out, had gone ahead to warn Grandma that Little Red had been talking to strangers and to call the cops.) Smallman closes with a set of follow-up questions and activities, but odds are that children will still be left confused as well as amused…particularly after Grandma’s “You can’t always tell who’s bad and who’s good.”
The waters are left a bit muddied, but this is still a serviceable reminder that “yell, run, and tell” is a good start. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68297-139-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: QEB Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Will draw more eyes than ever to the antics of this tuberous twosome.
Can Rot Poe Tater scare the snot out of Snot, his irritating big brother? Maybe with help from friends!
Tired of being the victim of his sib’s mischievous pranks, Rot, an anthropomorphic potato, is determined to turn the tables. Unfortunately, Snot seems to have eyes in the back of his head (no surprise, considering that he’s a potato), and even with a new pair of sneakers, Rot just can’t get the drop on him. Where can Rot learn to be even sneakier? Spy school, of course! Though Rot makes a hash out of lessons in keeping secrets and other spy skills, he finds classmates with complementary talents willing to help dish up a plan clever enough to startle the smirking older spud into a spectacularly gooey sneeze. And rather than mashing down his booger-blasted little bro, Snot gives him grudging props. Rot and pals rush to celebrate over a plate of only slightly slimed cupcakes (yum!), and the tale closes with a roguish final twist. The art, peeled down to the essentials and made with a mix of earth-toned paints, digital effects, and potato prints, adds to the episode’s air of mildly decayed charm.
Will draw more eyes than ever to the antics of this tuberous twosome. (nature facts, pranking guidelines, drawing lesson) (Graphic fiction. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781665964302
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Superficially appealing; much less so upon closer examination.
When Rabbit’s unbridled mania for collecting carrots leaves him unable to sleep in his cozy burrow, other animals offer to put him up.
But to Rabbit, their homes are just more storage space for carrots: Tortoise’s overstuffed shell cracks open; the branch breaks beneath Bird’s nest; Squirrel’s tree trunk topples over; and Beaver’s bulging lodge collapses at the first rainstorm. Impelled by guilt and the epiphany that “carrots weren’t for collecting—they were for SHARING!” Rabbit invites his newly homeless friends into his intact, and inexplicably now-roomy, burrow for a crunchy banquet. This could be read (with some effort) as a lightly humorous fable with a happy ending, and Hudson’s depictions of carrot-strewn natural scenes, of Rabbit as a plush bunny, and of the other animals as, at worst, mildly out of sorts support that take. Still, the insistent way Rabbit keeps forcing himself on his friends and the magnitude of the successive disasters may leave even less-reflective readers disturbed. Moreover, as Rabbit is never seen actually eating a carrot, his stockpiling looks a lot like the sort of compulsive hoarding that, in humans, is regarded as a mental illness.
Superficially appealing; much less so upon closer examination. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62370-638-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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