This terrific tater will appeal to plenty of tots.
Who rolls into action when an “escapee” from the freezer sets off an after-hours supermarket ruckus?
It’s all eyes on Supertato, racing to the rescue as someone swathes Cucumber in toilet paper, tapes Carrot to the conveyor belt with Band-Aids, and pushes hapless little veggies into a vat of gooey dip. Yes, there’s a pea on the loose—chortling evilly (“Mwah ha ha ha ha!”) and leading the intrepid tuber on a merry chase over darkened shelves that nearly sees the pursuer himself pulverized before the leering legume can be trapped in a wobbly gelatin dessert and led back to cold storage. Whew! Hendra and Linnet put googly-eyed faces on all the produce, outfit the two leads with masks and capes, and leave it to sharp-eyed viewers to spot the elusive trickster masquerading as a cherry atop a cupcake in one cartoon scene or in other concealment. The breathless, alliterative narrative eschews obvious puns (like that one), but Broccoli’s comment that “This jelly tastes of pea!” will elicit a gale of storytime snickers, and a suggestion to check freezers at home for signs of a similar “escapee” adds an equally chewy bit of wordplay to the end. The black type is occasionally set on deep blue backgrounds, making those blocks of text a challenge to read.
This terrific tater will appeal to plenty of tots. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9037-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
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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