In memorable homage to his dedicatees Dr. Seuss and Edward Lear, DiTerlizzi introduces an unruly alphabet of imaginary “creachlings,” colored in flat hues to evoke the printing processes of the previous century’s middle decades and described in sprightly verse. Bidding readers, “say good-bye to boring books / where ‘bears can bounce a ball,’ ” the author, who portrays himself in the pictures as an owlish lad wielding a paintbrush, starts out conventionally enough—“A is for an Angry Ack. / He eats your dirty clothes. / His favorite snack is stinky socks / with jam packed in the toes.” Soon, however, he finds himself struggling with entries that wander in out of order, thanks to a multiplying coterie of floating, beanlike “Teedle-Weenie Woo” that, being numbers rather than letters, make a bid to hijack the whole project. Ultimately, he comes to an accommodation with the interlopers, but his effort to kick off a “123” after reaching the “Zanderiffic Zibble Zook” takes an ominous turn when Ack and company pop back into view. Fans of If I Ran the Zoo (1950), or silly alphabets in general, will delight in tracking the burgeoning chaos while trying to wrap their tongues around the droll monikers of this manic menagerie. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-689-85290-8
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-059848-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
The creators of Punctuation Takes a Vacation (2003) sentence readers to a good time with this follow-up. Feeling left out after the children in Mr. Wright’s class thunder outside for a Field Day, the nouns and verbs left in the classroom decide to organize events of their own. But having chosen like parts of speech for partners—“Glue, Markers and Tape stuck together. Shout wanted to be with Cheer. So did Chew and Eat.”—it quickly becomes apparent that as opposing teams they can’t actually do anything. Depicting the Nouns as objects and the Verbs as hyperactive v-shaped figures, Rowe creates a set of high-energy scenes, climaxing in a Tug of Words and other contests once the participants figure out that they’ll work better mixed rather than matched. This playful introduction to words recalls Ruth Heller’s Kites Sail High (1998) and Merry-Go-Round (1990) for liveliness, and closes with several simple exercises and games to get children into the act. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-8234-1982-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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