In yet another delightfully inventive picture book, Steig combines a tale of uncanny transformation with his distinctively animated illustrations. By coincidence, Solomon the rabbit scratches his nose and wiggles his toes simultaneously—and a marvelous metamorphosis occurs: he discovers that he's capable of turning himself into a nail. Fueled by this unique ability, Solomon proceeds to test the trick on unsuspecting friends, who are baffled, and at home, where he mystifies everyone. But the thrill of the prank grows dull as time passes, and Solomon concentrates on Parcheesi and collecting butterflies. One summer day, while Solomon is searching for rare butterfly specimens in a meadow, he meets a most unpleasant stranger—Ambrose, a one-eyed cat. Armed with a knife, Ambrose is ready to march Solomon home to cook for supper. It's a frightful predicament but suddenly Solomon remembers his magic trick and vanishes. Ambrose, whose surly demeanor would frighten anyone, marches off in a rather confused state. Solomon reappears prematurely and is spotted by the cat, who pockets him as a nail and takes him away, not quite understanding the strange turn of events. Clorinda, his portly wife, doesn't really believe Ambrose's tale, but they put the nail in a padlocked cage in anticipation of fresh rabbit stew. As the days pass, the two become increasingly frustrated, and Ambrose eventually hammers Solomon into the side of the house in a fit of rage. Being a nail imbedded in a wall is a new experience for Solomon and he copes as best he can, though a pervading sense of loneliness permeates his reverie. A stroke of good fortune luckily occurs and Solomon returns home to his astounded family. Children will love this bizarre tale with its humorous drawings and lively sense of fun. Steig continues to create enchanting pictures in the style that has brought him international popularity.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1985
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1985
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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