Bear in particular takes a star turn in the loving trio’s latest welcome outing.
The splendid friends boogie down.
Hearing Bear’s wish to fly—“So I could swoop and glide / and feel the wind in my fur”—hyperactive Fox rushes into view with a cape and goggles. But spinning about to Fox’s instructions only leaves Bear feeling woozy. Fox’s next idea involves a sled ride...which also doesn’t end well. What to do? A portable record player (younger readers may need a bit of parental explanation here) turns out to be all Bear really needs to “swoop and glide”: “It’s like flying, but with your / feet on the ground. Mostly.” Both at the start and later on, big, fantastically shaggy Bear really cuts the rug in Bloom’s elementally simple pastels, demonstrating solo dance moves and poses that Dancing with the Stars entrants can only dream of and finally sweeping Goose and Fox up in a delirious collective whirl. Abrupt transitions from indoor dancing to outdoor sledding and back, plus jacket flaps that partially obscure the charming figures on the endpapers, are distracting but minor hitches in a joyful invitation to move to the music, any music.
Bear in particular takes a star turn in the loving trio’s latest welcome outing. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62979-442-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Totes adorbs.
A cuddly, squishy pug’s puggy-wuggy diary.
Equipped with both #pugunicorn and #pughotdog outfits, pug Baron von Bubbles (aka Bub) is the kind of dog that always dresses to impress. Bub also makes lots of memorable faces, such as the “Hey, you’re not the boss of me!” expression aimed at Duchess, the snooty pink house cat. Some of Bub’s favorite things include skateboarding, a favorite teddy, and eating peanut butter. Bub also loves Bella, who adopted Bub from a fair—it was “love at first sniff.” Together, Bub and Bella do a lot of arts and crafts. Their latest project: entering Bella’s school’s inventor challenge by making a super-duper awesome rocket. But, when the pesky neighborhood squirrel, Nutz, makes off with Bub’s bear, Bub accidentally ruins their project. How will they win the contest? More importantly, how will Bella ever forgive him? May’s cutesy, full-color cartoon art sets the tone for this pug-tastic romp for the new-to–chapter-books crowd. Emojilike faces accentuate Bub’s already expressive character design. Bub’s infectious first-person narration pushes the silly factor off the charts. In addition to creating the look and feel of a diary, the lined paper helps readers follow the eight-chapter story. Most pages have fewer than five sentences, often broken into smaller sections. Additional text appears in color-coded speech bubbles. Bella presents white.
Totes adorbs. (Fiction. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-53003-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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