Very slightly disguised bibliotherapy, applied with a light touch and capped with a tidy but not unbelievable resolution.
In this “coping with divorce” tale, a split family becomes an extended one—of robbers, royals and dragons.
“I have a really big family,” announces the matter-of-fact young narrator. “There are about 9 to 22 of us…depending on the day.” At first, seven robber sibs don’t mind shuttling back and forth between their robber parents, who split up because “they just weren’t getting along,” until a princess and her six “prim and prissy little princes and princesses” move in with Dad. So sad is he when his children drive the interlopers away, though, that the younger robbers track them down, rescue them and troop back. In consequence, it’s then not so much of a shock when the robbers’ mom announces that she’s taken up with a dragon father and his six offspring. For easy visual ID, Krause dresses all the robbers in black trench coats with very tall, skinny hats and the princesses in pink gowns and crowns teetering atop equally tall hairdos (the princelings get crowns and sailor suits). Her small figures march about or play in groups in the sketchily detailed cartoon illustrations—gathering in the final scene for general cavorting around a picnic blanket on which the four adults sit and chat amicably.
Very slightly disguised bibliotherapy, applied with a light touch and capped with a tidy but not unbelievable resolution. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4149-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
Yarlett takes poor advantage of the format, as readers see only half of the correspondence, but the premise and punny names...
A lad finds a big red dragon in his basement and wisely seeks expert advice about its care and feeding in this epistolary episode.
Young Alexander’s missives (there are no cellphones, nor parents, in sight) are mostly paraphrased rather than shown, but each response comes as a small note folded into a pocket that’s been printed and shaped like an envelope: “Douse it in water right away!” writes panic-stricken fire chief H.Y. Drant; find it a large house or castle, advises B. East of World Animal Welfare; “fatten it up,” suggests Angus Teak the butcher (“Look forward to [eating, scratched out] meeting your dragon”) with sinister relish. Boy and dragon have wonderful times together, but the ultimate realization that dragons really don’t make good pets leads the narrator to follow the written advice of best friend Hillary (“the wisest person I knew”) and set it free. The later arrival of a slightly burned picture postcard in the “post” reassures him that the dragon won’t be forgetting to keep in touch. The human figures in Yarlett’s cartoon illustrations are either white or have their heads cut off at the page top. With the exception of the pasted-on postcard from the dragon at the end, all of the correspondence is removable and thereby losable.
Yarlett takes poor advantage of the format, as readers see only half of the correspondence, but the premise and punny names add some appeal. (Novelty. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61067-818-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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