This labored effort is obviously meant to be funny, but it's more in the goofball style of Beavis and Butthead than an entry in the ranks of fractured fairy tales by such masters as Scieszka/Lane or James Marshall. Dedicated to the latter, this is a sort of ``The Stupids Meet Goldilocks,'' illustrated with Marshallesque settings and characters. The Dumb Bunnies (Momma, in bra-top and skirt, is ``really dumb''; Poppa, in polka dot briefs, ``even dumber''; Baby Bunny is ``the dumbest bunny of all'') leave their wrong-temperature porridge for an outing that includes a picnic inside a working carwash and bowling in the public library while a librarian glares. They come home to flush ``Little Red Goldilocks'' down the toilet. One problem here is that these bunnies aren't out of step in a well-ordered universe; their world is occupied by similarly witless souls. A sign advertising a spelling bee is misspelled; when Momma Bunny notes that someone has been eating her bed, someone has. The lava lamps in a jacket send-up of the Good Night Moon room will be funny to adults, as will several of the other props (some may even notice the pun in lieu of the author's real name). But let's not elevate this by calling it wit—at best, it's harmless silliness. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-590-47708-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
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
A serene, feel-good outing with a cozy, old-fashioned feel.
In this Japanese import, the first in a long-running series to appear in English, two girls ride bikes through a forest—with stops for clover-blossom tea and jam sandwiches.
It’s such a benign wood that Chirri and Chirra—depicted as a prim pair of identical twins with straight bob cuts—think nothing of sharing both a lunch spot and a nap beneath a tree with a bear and a rabbit. Moreover, at convenient spots along the way there is a forest cafe with a fox waiter plus “tables and chairs of all different size” to accommodate the diverse forest clientele, a bakery offering “bread in all different shapes and jam in all different colors,” and, just as the sun goes down, a forest hotel with similarly diverse keys and doors. That night a forest concert draws the girls and the hotel’s animal guests to their balconies to join in: “La-la-la, La-la-la. What a wonderful night in the forest!” Despite heavy doses of cute, the episode is saved from utter sappiness by the inclusive spirit of the forest stops and the delightfully unforced way that the girls offer greetings to a pair of honeybees at a tiny adjacent table in the cafe, show no anxiety at the spider dangling above their napping place, and generally accept their harmonious sylvan world as a safe and friendly place. Doi creates her illustrations with colored pencil, pastel, and crayon, crafting them to look like mid-20th-century lithographs.
A serene, feel-good outing with a cozy, old-fashioned feel. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59270-199-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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