Not for babies or toddlers but maybe for middle-graders in the gross-joke phase or perhaps a house-warming gift for a friend...
When a couple moves into a new home, neighbors stop by to welcome them.
As the book starts, a young couple (he with pale skin and red hair, she with ever-so-slightly darker skin and brown hair) open the door to their new home. They are pleased to have “this great new house.” One by one their neighbors show up and enter the house. Some come bearing gifts, such as the pregnant black woman who arrives with fruit or the white baker who’s baked a three-tiered cake. There is also a bodybuilder, a clown, a three-person band, a cowboy on his horse, a basketball player, a nurse, a cop, and even a pirate with a peg leg, hook hand, and parrot. (Of these enumerated, only the black basketball player and the brown-skinned policewoman appear not to be white.) The house is filling up, but the visitors are still arriving. Eventually a giant nose shows up and with a giant (and rather disgusting) “Ah… / CHOOO!” sneezes everyone away. As the couple cleans the plentiful green snot up they decide this might not be the place for them after all. The colorful illustrations have a quirky goofiness to them, but it is hard to see who the intended audience for this board book may be. With not a child in sight, or even a child-oriented topic (aside from the snot), it is clearly not a book for babies despite the format.
Not for babies or toddlers but maybe for middle-graders in the gross-joke phase or perhaps a house-warming gift for a friend with a strong stomach…? (Board book. 10 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-938073-93-9
Page Count: 60
Publisher: McSweeney's McMullens
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense.
In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees—Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo—eventually intertwine for maximum impact.
Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Help us.” With this book, Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with global and intergenerational reverberations that signal hope for the future. Excellent for older middle grade and above in classrooms, book groups, and/or communities looking to increase empathy for new and existing arrivals from afar.
Poignant, respectful, and historically accurate while pulsating with emotional turmoil, adventure, and suspense. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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