Shrieking “Parable!” at every page turn, this takes its design concept from another, arguably more lasting parable. Featuring an embossed cover with faux-stitching up the side that uneasily recalls Boris Karloff’s makeup job from Frankenstein, this wildly self-conscious offering presents the story of an unnamed boy who wanders the reaches of Cementland. This boy is very special—resembling nothing so much as a red-and-white-striped trashcan with stick arms and legs, he roams in search of treasure. One day he finds “a strange and wonderful box. Attached to the box was a wrinkled note, which said, ‘Put my wondrous riches into the earth and enjoy.’ ” Predictably enough, when the boy sprinkles the riches—tiny gray specks contained within many brightly colored packets—into the earth, mysterious robbers come overnight and steal them. So the boy manufactures a living scarecrow of wire, old socks, and underwear and dubs it Frog Belly Rat Bone. Together the boy and Frog Belly Rat Bone make friends with the three potential robbers, a rat, a rabbit, and a fruit fly, and win them over to the mysteries of gardening. Smeary full-bleed gray-green acrylics modulate to smeary red-orange-pink acrylics as the “wondrous treasure” sprouts until “Cementland is filled with colors now!” Over-designed, overburdened, overbearing nod to easy environmentalism aimed directly at the Grandma market. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7636-1382-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Mildly amusing, but something of a one-trick pony.
In this tech-savvy parody of the contemporary classic If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, a hyperactive pet mouse named Applesauce goes off the deep end (literally) while mesmerized with his boy’s iPhone.
Like many a harried caregiver, the boy—who’s finalizing preparations for a special outing to the “wild animal amusement park” with Applesauce—gives the persistently pesky mouse his iPhone as a diversion. Big mistake! Applesauce’s glassy-eyed absorption with the device results in utter mayhem. Oblivious to the roller coaster, tempting junk food and exotic animals at the amusement park, the tap-tap-tapping mouse inadvertently frees the animals from their cages and walks off a cliff. Hitching a ride with some conveniently passing porpoises, he winds up on a “distant island.” The boy arrives to rescue Applesauce, and the pair camp overnight. With no outlets or charger for the dead phone, Applesauce undergoes brief but dramatic withdrawal symptoms, which end with a marshmallow roast. “Ann Droyd”—aka David Milgrim—adopts the original text’s conditional, “if / then” formula but doesn’t attempt its exquisitely circular structure. Cartoony illustrations employ flat blues, grays and greens contoured in black, with word bubbles for dialogue. As Applesauce and his boy stargaze, the mouse asks, “By the way, how’d we get here?”
Mildly amusing, but something of a one-trick pony. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16926-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
None
Exuding her usual air of competence, Ms. Frizzle drives the magic school bus to the beach, over the sand, and into the waves to take her wisecracking class on a tour of an intertidal zone, the continental shelf, the deep sea bottom, and a coral reef. Degen's paintings feature plenty of colorful (and unobtrusively labeled) sea life. As always, the pace is breathless, the facts well chosen, the excitement of scientific study neatly evoked, and Ms. Frizzle's wardrobe equal to every extraordinary occasion. At the end, her students assemble a bulletin board chart to summarize their observations and—apparently in response to adult anxieties—Cole closes with a quiz clarifying the difference between fact and fiction in the story. Yes, it's a formula, but a winning one. (Nonfiction. 6-8)
None NonePub Date: Sept. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-590-41430-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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