Not much for plot or special features, but the engagingly ugly monster(s) will draw chortles.
A customizable monster and silly sound effects aplenty make a story that is, at best, perfunctory seem more or less forgivable.
Thanks to its resident monster—which viewers create at the outset by tapping a stocky figure that features 10 interchangeable hairy, slimy or otherwise monstrous heads, bodies, legs and arms—the mountain town of Greebley is a popular tourist destination. Until, that is, the short-sighted residents, infuriated by the monster’s damage to flowerbeds and buildings, drive it away. When economic depression strikes the suddenly deserted town, the complainers, who “felt sorry for treating the Greebley Greebley so badly,” coax it back. Party time! Along with a loop of classical music and crowd noises in the background, tapping figures in the cartoon illustrations sets off camera clicks, exclamations in chipmunk voices, echoing howls and, from the sad monster, hilariously juicy sobs and sniffs. A “home” icon on each page lets readers remake the monster any time, but they are left to discover on their own that page turns require tapping or swiping the lower corners. Furthermore, there is no animation or audio narration.
Not much for plot or special features, but the engagingly ugly monster(s) will draw chortles. (iPad storybook app. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Ginger Whale
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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