by Sue Heap & illustrated by Sue Heap ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2008
Two friends draw and write a nature story—before the reader’s eyes! Young Danny and Ettie wave to the reader as they stand in front of the zoo entrance, all bundled up on a snowy day. Danny also explains that he’s carrying his yellow drawing book (which looks just like the book in hand). Inside, the pair studies the elephants and the aardvark. After Danny shows his pictures, the book switches to the inside of Danny’s yellow drawing book and the children take over (several drawings to a page); only a few items in the pencil drawings are colored in, and the dialogue balloons look handwritten. Their wild adventure includes a daring airplane ride and a journey through the aardvark’s network of underground tunnels. At the end of the journey, illustrations switch back to their full-color pencil-and-acrylic boldness. Ettie and Danny wonder what they’ll draw tomorrow. Delicious premise, crisply written, with its sublime surprise tucked in the middle of the story for maximum impact. Young readers should be inspired to emulate Ettie and Danny. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3654-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
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by Doreen Cronin & illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2005
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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by Doreen Cronin ; illustrated by Betsy Lewin
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by Andrew Clements & illustrated by R.W. Alley ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 23, 2005
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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by Andrew Clements & illustrated by Mark Elliott
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