Revenge can backfire as Wizzil the witch finds out in Steig’s irreverent morality tale. Wizzil is a bored, mean, old witch who has fun making people suffer. Turning herself into a fly, she almost meets death by a flyswatter wielded by DeWitt Frimp, an elderly man who lives with his son and daughter-in-law and spends his days swatting flies. In revenge, Wizzil turns herself into a glove that Frimp loves and wears day and night. Working her magic, Wizzil makes his fly-swatting skill disappear and Frimp is enraged. In addition, Wizzil causes meatballs to explode, glasses of water to spurt up like fountains, and the whole house to shake. Realizing that the glove is the culprit, DeWitt sadly throws the glove into a stream, whereupon Wizzil is transformed into a drowning old lady. DeWitt jumps in and saves her and they live happily ever after. Blake’s watercolor and pen-and-ink drawings are filled with action and humor. These two are masters of this genre and together they are unstoppable. Sophisticated, they are never over the heads of the children and the adults who will enjoy Wizzil together. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2000
ISBN: 0-374-38466-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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