An irresistible treat for dog lovers.
The classic story of the faithful English collie is retold in a greatly simplified, attractively illustrated version for younger children.
This adaptation of an enduring dog story was developed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the original. As the story opens, Lassie has come home to her owner, a boy named Joe. The beautiful collie had been sold to the local duke because Joe’s father is out of work and the family can’t afford to feed her. When Lassie is returned to the duke, he takes her far away to his estate in northern Scotland, but Lassie runs away again with some help from the duke’s granddaughter. The faithful dog returns to Joe, traveling hundreds of miles over several months. A happy ending ensues, with Joe and Lassie reunited for good and a job for the father. The simplified plot skillfully retains the drama of the dog’s bravery and devotion and conveys the difficult circumstances of the family. Large-format watercolor illustrations bring the Yorkshire village and countryside to life, with particularly appealing depictions of bright-eyed Lassie. A helpful map of England and Scotland on the book’s first page shows the journey that Lassie takes from northern Scotland back home to Yorkshire.
An irresistible treat for dog lovers. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-294-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
While the slapstick may appeal to readers, sadly, this book is so confused and arbitrary, most of the humor falls flat.
A beleaguered giraffe tries to communicate that he isn’t a chair.
Poor Giraffe: on his first day in the jungle he’s seen as a chair by the other animals. Of course, giraffes aren’t actually found in jungles, and there’s little evidence of a jungle in the illustrations. While Giraffe does look a little like a chair, the fact that he has eyes and a mouth and nose and other features that distinguish the other animals from their seats makes it hard to understand why he is mistaken for a chair. But it’s all about the gag. Burach uses action-filled spreads to indicate a series of incidents that literally impede Giraffe’s speech, but when he is finally able to speak up for himself, he chooses instead to make a fake chair that looks like him. When that doesn’t work, he’s taken home by a dull-witted human who also uses him for a chair. Upon escaping, he is used as a chair by a lion waiting for dinner. When Giraffe finally decides to speak up and clear up the misunderstanding, he saves his own skin by scaring the lion, who thinks he’s a talking chair. The childlike drawings emphasize googly eyes, silly grins, a multitude of sound effects in emphatic display type, and lots of physical humor.
While the slapstick may appeal to readers, sadly, this book is so confused and arbitrary, most of the humor falls flat. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-236016-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
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