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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tall-tale introduction to the ``King of the Keelboatmen,'' from the time he ran away from home at the age of two days to his literally explosive confrontation with steamboat captain Hilton B. Blathersby. The historical Fink was a cruel man who came to a violent end, but Kellogg depicts him as a friendly-looking, fun-loving youth; indeed, nearly all of the keelboatmen here- -black, white, old, and young—are smiling, clean-cut types, rather at odds with their usual roughneck image. Though Fink spends much of his time wrestling men or bears, Kellogg's description of him seems bland in comparison to his glowing, energetic illustrations, and less heroic than his other legendary figures. (Picture book/Folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1992
ISBN: 0-688-07003-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
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