Heavy-handed in its environmental message but still enjoyable.
Kyu-chan, a mischievous Japanese water creature, is the last kappa because of a changing environment.
Folklore, a 19th-century story, an environmental plea, and a pourquoi story about kappamaki, a popular sushi roll, combine to make a clunky, overcrowded picture book that nevertheless still engages readers, especially those seeking a page-by-page bilingual text. Norihei, an ordinary farm boy, meets Kyu, a kappa away from his river too long, and saves his life by splashing him with water. They become fast friends, but Kyu’s family decides to move away because the “area is getting dangerous.” The humans are affecting the environment with their railroads and electricity, a trend that will cause Kyu’s kind to die out. Before leaving, the kappa gives the boy a magic talisman if ever Norihei needs help with water. Norihei grows up, marries, has a child, and starts a restaurant. When his baby falls into a stream, the grown man calls upon his old friend (looking very aged due to human disregard for clean water) for assistance. Norihei names cucumber-filled sushi rolls after him as a reward. “Cultural Notes” provide background information, along with a joke about kappas evolving into “ninja turtles.” The illustrations, mostly bordered rectangles set against handmade paper, combine elements of Japanese wood-carved prints with cartoonlike faces and great detail, showing both traditional agricultural scenes and industrialization.
Heavy-handed in its environmental message but still enjoyable. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-4-8053-1399-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tuttle
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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IN THE NEWS
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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