School lunch bites—literally—in the third impossibly droll escapade featuring dragonling Danny Dragonbreath and his peace-loving iguana buddy, Wendell. When Wendell and other students at Herpitax-Phibbias School For Reptiles and Amphibians are nipped by a strangely colored hot dog, Danny finds himself in a race against time to find and take out the Alpha-Wurst in a package of feral were-wieners before his friend and schoolmates are transformed into mindless minions. Dishing out most of the many punchlines and wisecracks in thick-lined red-and-green cartoons, Vernon crafts a mixed-format escapade that sends Danny and Wendell on a Journey through dark storm drains (cue a Joseph Campbell joke from Wendell; "Who?" asks Danny) to enlist the aid of an escaped sentient potato salad that likewise came out of the school kitchen—because “everybody knows that potato salad and hot dogs are ancient enemies”—and on to a gory (okay, ketchup-y) climax in the lunchroom fridge. What next? Would you believe….a Bat Monster? Stay tuned. (Graphic hybrid fantasy. 8-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3469-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
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In the full-color world of Super Happy Magic Forest, everyone recognizes what evil looks like…or do they?
This over-the-top happy place with fun, dancing, and picnics every day maintains its positive energy because of three Mystical Crystals of Life. After a two-sentence exposition, readers learn that someone has stolen the crystals, throwing all the forest inhabitants into panic. The five bravest warriors, including the reluctant Blossom, a unicorn, and Trevor, a red-and-white mushroom, go in search of the culprit, only to find in the end that their arduous journey has been for naught. In this debut picture book, Long fills nearly every page with details that will keep young readers engaged and interested: a penguin distraught over losing the frying pan it evidently uses as a cudgel, a gravestone bearing the name of one of the warriors, a headless skeleton preparing to decapitate the clueless Blossom. Some pages will remind readers of the Smurfs’ village—another superhappy place—while others seem to take a page from video game journeys, with many twists and turns. In the end, though, this book that exudes youthfulness and joy delivers quite a cynical message: sometimes those in whom we’ve placed the most trust can betray us. And when they do, they should expect a comeuppance sans mercy.
For Where’s Waldo? graduates who are ready for heavy-duty irony. (Picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-86059-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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BOOK REVIEW
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Categories: GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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