Inspired by a teacher’s suggestion and weary of the udder sameness of a dairy farmer’s year, young Manny impulsively bustles his 500 cows onto buses for an end-of-school excursion to Niagara Falls. Anyone who’s taken a field trip with large groups of third-graders will know what to expect. Reluctant at first, the bovine brigade soon gets into the spirit of things, laughing hysterically at silly verses of “Old MacDonald,” horsing around (so to speak) on the buses and piling out at a roadside stop for snacks and sodas. The last activity results in a massive cowtastrophe, as the long ride ends next to “the world’s largest faucet,” and not even Niagara’s toilet facilities turn out to be quite up to handling 500 cross-legged vacationers at once. Becker illustrates the outing in light, sketchy views of rambunctious revelers thundering hither and yon on two legs, chattering and trading hilarious comments. Further disaster looms after the herd is let loose in the gift shop, but all ends happily with a smooooooth ride back to home pastures. Easily the most memorable ruminant retreat since David Kirby and Allen Woodman’s The Cows Are Going To Paris (1991), illustrated by Chris Demarest. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-054152-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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