Will the puzzle pieces last any longer than the thin plastic sleeves in which they’re packaged? It’s no mystery.
Pre-K Poirots eager to find out what happened to Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, and other nursery-rhyme victims can literally assemble the clues in this set of jigsaw puzzles.
Not that the investigations are particularly challenging. Opposite partial versions of six familiar rhymes, the climactic outcomes are hidden beneath 12-piece puzzles. Each of these pairs a leading question (“What did the pussycat do in London?”) and instructions to flip the inset pieces over. Actually, just removing the puzzle layer reveals all, since the final lines and their cartoon illustrations are reproduced below as well as on the back sides of the die-cut puzzle pieces. Most of the human figures (and Humpty Dumpty) are light-skinned, but in a nod to diversity, Jack and Jill are dark brown with textured hair. Though aside from the elopement of the Dish and the Spoon, the chosen rhymes describe assaults or potential life-and-death situations, the pictures are as bland as can be: Humpty just loses a few nonessential chips; Miss Muffet’s spider sports a wide smile and a jaunty red top hat; Jack wears an actual crown on his head, which looks a little odd considering his otherwise modern clothing but spares him physical injury. For the test-and-review minded, all the figures reassemble for a closing pool party.
Will the puzzle pieces last any longer than the thin plastic sleeves in which they’re packaged? It’s no mystery. (Nursery rhymes/novelty. 2-4)Pub Date: June 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63322-068-3
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Walter Foster Jr.
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Toddlers familiar with the Disney movies or with obliging parents who can help them connect the dots may get something out...
A toddler-sized version of the classic fairy tale.
With one or two words per page, this board book presents the barest bones of the princess’ story. Characters are labeled and plot points shared in brightly colored scenes. While the princess does celebrate a birthday and prick her finger on a spindle, it will seem to most toddler readers that not much happens. She takes a long nap, the prince comes and wakes her up, and everyone at the palace has a party. Three others in the series publish simultaneously and follow a similar format. Rapunzel has also had the scary bits removed, and it looks like the heroine simply gets a haircut and then takes a walk in the woods before meeting her prince. In Beauty and the Beast, the book-loving young girl befriends a purple-horned lion, a fellow bibliophile, who turns into a prince with purple hair. In The Little Mermaid, the mermaid enjoys an adventure with legs on dry land with a friendly prince. The ending is vague here, but it would appear as if the heroine returns home to her family with scales intact. This quartet, which follows the previously published Snow White and Cinderella (2012), features stylized cartoons of characters with oversized heads against brightly colored backgrounds. The cover of each offering includes tactile glitter embellishments.
Toddlers familiar with the Disney movies or with obliging parents who can help them connect the dots may get something out of these summarized versions, but, like Sleeping Beauty’s fairies, the plots are going to fly right over the heads of most board-book readers. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9791-7
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Two one-dimensional detection cases of the sort that seem to be proliferating. These feature the Bloodhound Gang of TV's 3-2-1 Contact. In The Case of the Cackling Ghost, Professor Bloodhound's three young employees—ages 10, 15, and 16—are summoned to a large country house, where an old woman is bothered by nightly visits from a ghost. The ghost, the trio soon discovers, is really clumps of moths attracted by pheromones—an illusion cooked up by the woman's debt-ridden nephew who hopes to frighten her into turning over her precious, but reputedly curse-ridden necklace. In . . . Princess Tomrorow, the gang is called as witnesses for a shady couple who pretend to predict horse-race results—but the corroborating letter received by the agency has actually been mailed after the race. The one they witnessed being mailed before the race has been invalidated by a wet but deliberately glueless postage stamp. They're both clever tricks, but of a sort that usually come five or ten to a volume. There's no attempt to flesh out the puzzles, and not a trace of the Fleischman wit and vigor.
Pub Date: April 1, 1981
ISBN: 0394946731
Page Count: 63
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1981
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