A good choice for young ones who are overcoming nighttime obstacles, from lost bedtime companions to fear of the dark
Yeti loses his nighttime companion and must brave a storm at night alone.
Yeti and his stuffed yeti sidekick, Chunk, “stick together like peanut butter and jelly.” The duo shares everything from food to danger, and they make a great team, whether they are reading or fighting dinosaurs. But one night at bedtime, Yeti realizes Chunk is nowhere in sight. Frantic, Yeti scours his home: he dons a snorkel and searches the still-filled bathtub, he grabs a flashlight to check outdoors, he rummages in the garbage, he digs through the toy box, and he dirties his white coat peeking up the chimney. Unsuccessful and scared, Yeti realizes that he will have to go to bed alone. He tries to sleep, but the storm, mysterious sounds under his bed, and strange shadows induce in Yeti a hair-raising fright. In his follow-up to The Thing About Yetis (2015), Vogel offers visual contrast between a satisfied, accompanied Yeti (white backgrounds with warm-color vignettes) versus a lone, frightened Yeti (isolated in the middle of gray and purple double-page spreads). Brief text—often just a sentence fragment or two per page—is set in a blocky sans serif typeface, while loud sounds appear in display type: the “KRA-AK!” of thunder; Yeti’s proud “ROAR!” when he conquers his fear.
A good choice for young ones who are overcoming nighttime obstacles, from lost bedtime companions to fear of the dark . (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-99431-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A wandering effort, happy but pointless.
The perfect book for kids who love dragons and mild tacos.
Rubin’s story starts with an incantatory edge: “Hey, kid! Did you know that dragons love tacos? They love beef tacos and chicken tacos. They love really big gigantic tacos and tiny little baby tacos as well.” The playing field is set: dragons, tacos. As a pairing, they are fairly silly, and when the kicker comes in—that dragons hate spicy salsa, which ignites their inner fireworks—the silliness is sillier still. Second nature, after all, is for dragons to blow flames out their noses. So when the kid throws a taco party for the dragons, it seems a weak device that the clearly labeled “totally mild” salsa comes with spicy jalapenos in the fine print, prompting the dragons to burn down the house, resulting in a barn-raising at which more tacos are served. Harmless, but if there is a parable hidden in the dragon-taco tale, it is hidden in the unlit deep, and as a measure of lunacy, bridled or unbridled, it doesn’t make the leap into the outer reaches of imagination. Salmieri’s artwork is fitting, with a crabbed, ethereal line work reminiscent of Peter Sís, but the story does not offer it enough range.
A wandering effort, happy but pointless. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3680-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
Out in time for the chilliest season, this offers a solution to winter blues while adding to the growing list of yeti...
When the winter gets rough, what is a yeti to do?
Readers follow a nameless yeti accompanied by a stuffed toy yeti in a simple narrative. Yetis love several things about winter: waking up to quiet, snowy mornings, drinking hot chocolate, sliding down hills, building snow castles, frolicking in the snow and pretending to be Godzilla, ice-skating “Yeti style” (belly down). Nevertheless, it isn’t entirely grand for yetis in the winter, for they, too, experience winter blues, when hot-chocolate supplies have been depleted and their cold, wet fur won’t dry. And so they miss the warm summer: playing outdoors for long hours, looking for sea creatures, producing sea-monster beauty contests, building sand castles, and zipping down splashy slides, also yeti-style. They miss the summer nights and listening to the sound of crickets, wishing on shooting stars, and gazing at the hundreds of fireflies. Vogel, in his debut as both author and illustrator, contrasts the white, gray, barren winter spreads with lively green backyards, sunny beach days, and blue summer nights. The yeti’s expressions merit great attention, as do the nod to a yeti-fied version of a Sendak classic and such important scene-setting details as the radiators found in cold-weather homes.
Out in time for the chilliest season, this offers a solution to winter blues while adding to the growing list of yeti protagonists. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8037-4170-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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