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
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work.
A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
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