Silly, messy, fast-paced fun.
DJ Funkyfoot—a butler, not a DJ, despite his parents’ wishes—has a chaotic day babysitting.
DJ Funkyfoot is not a hip-hop star, though it’s “a common mistake.” He is, however, currently unemployed and can’t afford to be too picky about what jobs he takes. The anthropomorphic dog (identified as a Chihuahua in prior volumes of the related Inspector Flytrap series) accepts a job as a nanny to “ShrubBaby, the Adorable Baby Shrub,” whose previous 43 nannies have all quit. The problem, as DJ Funkyfoot explains to ShrubBaby, is that it’s a nanny’s job to say no, but a butler’s job to say yes. If a butler’s charge requests, say, to drive a pickle-relish truck into the pond, the butler must agree. Saying yes to ShrubBaby leads DJ Funkyfoot into constant catastrophes. First he’s covered in pickle relish, then in pickle relish and soda, then in pickle relish, soda, and cake frosting, and finally in pickle relish, soda, cake frosting, and slime. Everything they encounter is exciting, extreme, and ultimate. (DJ Funkyfoot and ShrubBaby appear on both Ultimate Disaster Masters Showdown: Extreme and Extreme Cake Bakers Showdown: Ultimate.) Fox’s two-toned cartoon illustrations of huge-eyed plant and animal characters are supplemented by a few pages of nearly wordless comics panels in this first collaboration between author and illustrator. Repetition and cumulative buildups add to the comedy while giving transitioning readers helpful scaffolding.
Silly, messy, fast-paced fun. (Adventure. 6-9)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4728-1
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure.
It’s not truffles but doubloons that tickle this porcine wayfarer’s fancy.
Funke and Meyer make another foray into chapter-book fare after Emma and the Blue Genie (2014). Here, mariner Stout Sam and deckhand Pip eke out a comfortable existence on Butterfly Island ferrying cargo to and fro. Life is good, but it takes an unexpected turn when a barrel washes ashore containing a pig with a skull-and-crossbones pendant around her neck. It soon becomes clear that this little piggy, dubbed Julie, has the ability to sniff out treasure—lots of it—in the sea. The duo is pleased with her skills, but pride goeth before the hog. Stout Sam hands out some baubles to the local children, and his largess attracts the unwanted attention of Barracuda Bill and his nasty minions. Now they’ve pignapped Julie, and it’s up to the intrepid sailors to save the porker and their own bacon. The succinct word count meets the needs of kids looking for early adventure fare. The tale is slight, bouncy, and amusing, though Julie is never the piratical buccaneer the book’s cover seems to suggest. Meanwhile, Meyer’s cheery watercolors are as comfortable diagramming the different parts of a pirate vessel as they are rendering the dread pirate captain himself.
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure. (Adventure. 7-9)Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37544-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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