Doubting Dasha goes where everyone else fears to tread because she doubts there are monsters in the forest stealing her town’s grain.
Somebody is raiding the granary. Rumor has it that the scary ones who live deep in the swampy parts of the forest are the culprits, but that sounds like a stretch to Dasha, who specializes in doubting. So into the forest she marches, taking various routes and meeting with multiple monsters, from ugly, old Baba Yaga and a troll with a serious case of foot fungus to a werewolf with fleas and a zombie who is losing body parts right and left. Dasha defeats them all with kindness, and readers get to join her in curing the monsters’ many ills. The games are not mentally challenging, but a couple require a sure sense of screen touch, especially in ridding the werewolf of fleas and keeping the zombie’s eyeballs from dropping out of his head. The monsters’ dialogue is set in verse, which treads the line between cute and clownish: “We decided to come back / And help you with your human pack. / If you don’t mind that I’m so farty / We decided to throw a party!” A mildly annoying, noodling bit of music accompanies Dasha on her quest, but the artwork is an eyeful, full of the velvety colors of night. And, should readers persevere, they will learn the identity of the dirty rat making off with the grain. The level of engagement and the story’s braided scenarios are taxing enough to keep younger users fully attentive. (iPad storybook app. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Tatyana Mironova
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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