Whimsical, offbeat, and marvelous—just like its prehistoric protagonist.
Parents are confounded by their child’s inquisitive nature, until the youngster’s unconventional thinking saves the day.
For two cave people, life is comfortingly predictable. Until—“Ahhhhhhhhh / Whoa”—there’s a baby. More than a few parents will recognize the characters’ piquant mixture of awe and slight chagrin at this development. As “it” grows, these parents just can’t understand. The newcomer is “loud,” “not strong,” and a “picky eater” who prefers sticks to rocks. After the child attempts a construction project that collapses in a heap, one parent becomes enraged, accidentally rousing the attention of a hungry woolly mammoth. But after the quick-thinking child tosses a beloved stick for the mammoth to fetch, crisis is averted, and the family throws a hootenanny celebrating their “different good” child and their newfound mammoth buddy. While Lam explores a familiar theme—that of marching to one’s own drum—the choice to cast early hominids as protagonists, with their terse sentences, rudimentary grammar, and heavy use of onomatopoeia, makes for a boisterous tale, especially when read aloud. The droll humor works particularly well beside the cinematically collaged art, with flowing panels that feel like stop-motion animation. Drawn with confident black lines, the early humans (plus one truly expressive mammoth) are assembled paper doll–style and set atop creamy, sparsely decorated backgrounds. Simply snipped boulders and branches made from desaturated, patterned paper inject surprising drama. The family has paper-white skin.
Whimsical, offbeat, and marvelous—just like its prehistoric protagonist. (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781771477161
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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