Though there is hardly an overabundance of picture books about cryptids, this is still one to skip.
Kroll offers an original tale about yetis.
In Bhutan, a young girl and her pet yak, Karpo, set out with her father and brother on their first mountain journey to learn the secrets of trail trekking. When Pem slips and falls into a deep snowbank, a yeti rescues her. Even though the yeti can’t speak, he explains that Pem and Karpo are fine. How? “Back and forth they transferred questions, answers and feelings while Karpo chewed the mound of hay that the yeti had provided.” Through this absurd contrivance, the two discuss interspecies misconceptions: Humans tell one another scary stories about yetis; yetis must hide from hunters. Pem meets the yeti’s mate and their twins, who show her a cave drawing of a human with a gun. Pem adds a picture of herself and the little yak before the male yeti “eye-promise[s]” her that he will reunite her with her family the next day. A two-page author’s note about Bhutan explains that the country’s belief in yetis is so strong that stamps have been issued claiming it is the only yeti sanctuary in the world. The blue-dominant illustrations are awkwardly composed; Uyá’s stylized faces often looked distorted, even grotesque.
Though there is hardly an overabundance of picture books about cryptids, this is still one to skip. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-84-15784-72-2
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Cuento de Luz
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Series fans won’t be disappointed, but young readers and listeners who know only the original ditty may find this a touch...
Having eaten pretty much everything on land in 13 previous versions of the classic song, Colandro’s capaciously stomached oldster goes to sea.
Once again the original cumulative rhyme’s naturalistic aspects are dispensed with, so that not only doesn’t the old lady die, but neither do any of the creatures she consumes. Instead, the titular shark “left no mark,” a squid follows down the hatch to “float with the shark,” a fish to “dance with the squid,” an eel to “brighten the fish” (with “fluorescent light!” as a subsequent line explains), and so on—until at the end it’s revealed to be all pretending anyway on a visit to an aquarium. Likewise, though Lee outfits the bespectacled binge-eater with a finny tail and the requisite bra for most of the extended episode, she regains human feet and garb at the end. In the illustrations, the old lady and one of the two children who accompany her are pink-skinned; the other has frizzy hair and an amber complexion. A set of nature notes on the featured victims and a nautical seek-and-find that will send viewers back to the earlier pictures modestly enhance this latest iteration.
Series fans won’t be disappointed, but young readers and listeners who know only the original ditty may find this a touch bland. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-12993-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
