Cleverly designed for new readers’ success.
In a version of the Indian fable “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” an assortment of jungle animals plays a blindfolded guessing game.
The story begins wordlessly with the lion giving each animal a blindfold before leading the elephant to another area. Blindfolded, the lion cub feels the elephant’s leg and declares, “It is a tree.” Readers will immediately see the illustration of a tree trunk within the speech bubble and understand how the cub came to that conclusion. Next, comically balancing atop a ladder, the blindfolded giraffe feels what must be a wall but is in reality the elephant’s flat side. The game continues with the hippo mistaking the elephant’s trunk for a snake; the crocodile, a wrinkled ear for a fan; the zebra, the tail for a rope; and the turtle, a tusk for a pipe. Each of these guesses is expressed in a simple sentence beginning “It is a…” with a visual of the animal’s guess to provide picture cues for emerging readers. A final review lists each word next to its position on an elephant-shaped brick wall with tree-trunk legs, a rope tail, two fans, and a befuddled snake dangling between two pipes. But as readers turn the page, the now-cheering friends, blindfolds off, reveal, “It is an elephant.” The amusing cartoon artwork makes for an excellent enhancement. The story’s origins are revealed only in the cataloging-in-publication statement.
Cleverly designed for new readers’ success. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4531-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Bechtold makes a sturdy debut with these three episodes in the life of a big dog with scrawny self-esteem. Although he is intimidated by strangers and totally unable to catch thrown objects, Buster discovers that he’s a good listener, a talent that comes in handy when there’s an escaped hamster to track down, a gang of nocturnal garbage-pail plunderers to catch in the act, or a lonely human to comfort. Slinking anxiously through airy, simply drawn scenes, the pop-eyed, charcoal-colored pooch looks ready to bolt at the drop of a hat, and while he finds a measure of courage at last in the company of his outgoing canine companion, Phoebe, readers will want to give him a reassuring hug. Scoot over, Mudge. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-85008-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
His social standing having been restored in Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf (2007), the old folktale bad guy is invited back to the library—this time to tell the story of “The Three Little Pigs.” Overcoming his understandable reluctance after Rumpelstiltskin, fellow resident at the Villain Villa Senior Center, advises him to put his own spin on the episode, Wolf trots out a version involving unfortunate accidents and careless, aggressive pigs. Unfortunately, the aforementioned porkers are actually in the storytime audience, and before you can say “not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin,” they’re up in his face, demanding the truth and an apology. As before, Seibold supplies big, droll digitally painted scenes featuring a hangdog Wolf in a hideous orange plaid suit and a supporting cast of familiar characters from Pinocchio (“Isn’t that wolf’s snout getting longer?”) to the Little Engine (“I think it is. I think it is”). In the end Wolf tootles off hinting that there may be future “Fairy Tales Remodeled.” That’s good news, as all fans of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and its teeming clan will agree. (Picture book/folktale/spoof. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-375-85620-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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