Every year since kindergarten, Harry’s Halloween costume has gotten scarier and scarier. What’s it going to be this year? He’s not telling. His classmates are all stunned when he shows up, not as some monster or a weird alien (well, not really)—but as neatly dressed Sgt. Joe Friday of Dragnet fame, wielding a notebook and out to get “just the facts, ma’am.” As she has in Harry’s 11 previous appearances (15, counting the ones his classmate Song Lee headlines), Kline (Marvin and the Mean Words, 1997, etc.) captures grammar-school atmosphere, personalities, and incidents perfectly, from snits to science projects gone hilariously wrong. She even hands Harry/Friday a chance to exercise his sleuthing abilities, with a supply of baby powder “fairy dust” gone mysteriously missing. As legions of fans have learned to expect, Harry comes through with flying colors, pinning down the remorseful culprit in 11 minutes flat. No surprises here, just reliable, child-friendly, middle-grade fare. Illustrations not seen. (Fiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-670-88864-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Faulkner’s (Black Belt, not reviewed, etc.) art waxes more riotously exuberant than ever in Jackson’s heavily modified Welsh folktale. Though Sam seems happy enough being a total doofus, the town gossip finally wears him down to the point of asking a “widder” conversant with “lotions and potions and whatnot,” for some smarts. Brawny, brown-skinned, and distinctly larger than life, she sets to stirring up a huge pot of Glue Stew to stick Sam’s brains together, sending him out for ingredients that she describes in impenetrable (to Sam, at least) riddles. Luckily, Sam has a riddle-solving friend in fresh-faced barnstormer Maizie Mae. Faulkner turns even the hills and buildings into interested spectators as Sam, a Hugh Grant lookalike, shuttles back and forth between the Widder’s barber-pole-striped lighthouse and enlightening, increasingly romantic rendezvous with Maizie Mae. Finished at last, the Glue Stew spills gooily through town, bringing the young folk to a satisfying clinch in front of the church door. Belly laughs and bravos will punctuate every reading of this fresh, funny recasting. (Picture book/folktale. 7-9)
Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-88106-394-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
Vowing that “every single word is true, unless it is false,” Schanzer (Escaping to America, 2000, etc.) relates an American hero’s greatest feat. Called from the backwoods to save the world, Davy takes on Halley’s comet itself, battling the onrushing juggernaut over land and sea, and sending it hurtling back the way it came, tail (figuratively) between its legs. Using one-fourth of each two-paged spread for text, Schanzer fills the rest with softly colored figures who turn robust as the battle begins. Depicted as a clean-shaven, strong-jawed, Rambo-esque figure in form-fitting buckskins, Davy cuts a truly admirable figure; likewise, the Earthbound comet, with its glaring red eyes and sharklike teeth, makes a suitably ferocious-looking adversary. Stopping short of caricature, these folksy critters suit the aw-shucks language perfectly in this original tale. Davy does such a fine job that he wins a seat in Congress, plus the hand of apple-cheeked Sally Sugartree—whose own dustups get an equally vigorous recap in Steven Kellogg’s Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett (1995), a natural companion piece. (author’s note) (Tall tale/picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-16991-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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