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Eat, Eat, Eat! Cheese, Cheese, Cheese!

A fine children’s book about mice who get in a bit of wonderful trouble.

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT

Three cheese-loving mouse friends find themselves face-to-face with a hungry cat in Bartlett’s (Never Was a Grump Grumpier, 2014, etc.) cheerful children’s book.

Footloose, Fancy, and Free are three mouse pals, and like many rodents, they love to eat cheese. In fact, it’s their favorite activity in the whole world, so it’s no surprise that after the trio sneaks into Jim’s world-famous cheese emporium via a keyhole, a mousehole, and the front door, they eat themselves silly. But there’s a problem: Footloose, Fancy, and Free eat so much that they can no longer get out of the shop. Their rotund, cheese-stuffed bodies simply can’t fit through the exits. Things get more harrowing when Gourmet, a cat, comes around, because her favorite thing, like many cats, is to chew up delicious mice. What will the three friends do to escape? The answer involves a mousetrap, a pair of reading glasses, and the concept of having too much of a good thing. All readers, even lactose-intolerant ones, will be able to relate to the lesson of the mice’s story: when you can have as much as you want, it’s hard to control yourself, and there are always consequences. The book is suspenseful (the mice are in peril, after all) without being too scary; it will work well for both younger and older children as well as for adults who may be turning the pages. Bartlett’s illustrations are also fantastic; they make the book come alive with energy and add a lot to the accompanying text. The charming, thought-out design and layout, with words scattered about the pages, make it clear that Bartlett is a skilled comic writer, as does the punch line at the end. The book’s sturdy construction will also come in handy for many evenings of page-turning bedtime stories.

A fine children’s book about mice who get in a bit of wonderful trouble.

Pub Date: May 13, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-7339086-5-8

Page Count: 52

Publisher: Sandhill Publishers, LLC

Review Posted Online: March 24, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015

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HOW TO CATCH A WITCH

Not enough tricks to make this a treat.

Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.

Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland

Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022

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WRECKING BALL

From the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series , Vol. 14

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.

The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.

When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Amulet/Abrams

Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019

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