bookshelf

LAZY LITTLE LOAFERS

Name: LAZY LITTLE LOAFERS
Author: Susan Orlean
ISBN: 978-0-8109-7027-4

by Susan Orlean & illustrated by G. Brian Karas ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2008

bookshelf

Struggling off to school beneath a huge backpack, a disgruntled child fulminates about how her urban world seems filled with babies lolling idly about. Following a particular specimen (who turns out to be her own sibling), she delivers acid comments about infants sporting sunglasses, learning to walk—“Is it possible they don’t work but still go out for a three-bottle lunch and get a little tipsy?”—and spending long days hanging out in Central Park. Well-decorated with baby ads and posters, Karas’s paint-and-photocollage street scenes form a backdrop for squads of happy toddlers and leave the narrator, who ruefully concludes that babies really don’t work because they’re too smart, peering out of the school door as a passing rugrat delivers a Bronx cheer. A chuckle-inducing rant in the fine old tradition of Martha Alexander’s Nobody Asked Me If I Wanted A Baby Sister (1971). (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-8109-7027-4

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

bookshelf

BUBBA, THE COWBOY PRINCE

A FRACTURED TEXAS TALE

by Helen Ketteman & illustrated by James Warhola ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1997

bookshelf

A Cinderella parody features the off-the-wall, whang-dang Texas hyperbole of Ketteman (The Year of No More Corn, 1993, etc.) and the insouciance of Warhola, who proves himself only too capable of creating a fairy godcow; that she's so appealingly whimsical makes it easy to accept the classic tale's inversions. The protagonist is Bubba, appropriately downtrodden and overworked by his wicked stepdaddy and loathsome brothers Dwayne and Milton, who spend their days bossing him around. The other half of the happy couple is Miz Lurleen, who owns ``the biggest spread west of the Brazos.'' She craves male companionship to help her work the place, ``and it wouldn't hurt if he was cute as a cow's ear, either.'' There are no surprises in this version except in the hilarious way the premise plays itself out and in Warhola's delightful visual surprises. When Lurleen tracks the bootless Bubba down, ``Dwayne and Milton and their wicked daddy threw chicken fits.'' Bubba and babe, hair as big as a Texas sun, ride off to a life of happy ranching, and readers will be proud to have been along for the courtship. (Picture book/folklore. 6-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-590-25506-1

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
IT'S HALLOWEEN, LITTLE MONSTER
by Helen Ketteman ; illustrated by Bonnie Leick

- BOOK REVIEW
AT THE OLD HAUNTED HOUSE
by Helen Ketteman ; illustrated by Nate Wragg

- BOOK REVIEW
THERE ONCE WAS A COWPOKE WHO SWALLOWED AN ANT
by Helen Ketteman ; illustrated by Will Terry

bookshelf

IGGY PECK, ARCHITECT

by Andrea Beaty & illustrated by David Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2007

bookshelf

A repressive teacher almost ruins second grade for a prodigy in this amusing, if overwritten, tale. Having shown a fascination with great buildings since constructing a model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa from used diapers at age two, Iggy sinks into boredom after Miss Greer announces, throwing an armload of histories and craft projects into the trash, that architecture will be a taboo subject in her class. Happily, she changes her views when the collapse of a footbridge leaves the picnicking class stranded on an island, whereupon Iggy enlists his mates to build a suspension bridge from string, rulers and fruit roll-ups. Familiar buildings and other structures, made with unusual materials or, on the closing pages, drawn on graph paper, decorate Roberts’s faintly retro cartoon illustrations. They add an audience-broadening element of sophistication—as would Beaty’s decision to cast the text into verse, if it did not result in such lines as “After twelve long days / that passed in a haze / of reading, writing and arithmetic, / Miss Greer took the class / to Blue River Pass / for a hike and an old-fashioned picnic.” Another John Lithgow she is not, nor is Iggy another Remarkable Farkle McBride (2000), but it’s always salutary to see young talent vindicated. (Picture book. 6-8)