Between the moose dialect and the story’s twist, this may not be one of your grandmother’s tales, but even she won’t be able...
Storytellers and Maynard Moose–lovers celebrate! There’s a wonderfully wacky new folksy tale for you.
Maynard (Rapunzel and the Seven Dwarfs, 2011, etc.) tells of Bully Goat Grim, a goat who is suffering from “Random Hostility Syndrome,” which causes him to lower his horns and head-butt cute, fluffy forest creatures. The kindly, though strange, troll family that lives under the bridge takes his challenge—“Beware, beware, the Bully Goat Grim! / Nobody better not mess with him!”—personally, but neither daddy troll nor mommy troll can decide on a way of dealing with the interloper. Luckily, baby troll knows her grammar and comes up with a clever plan that thwarts the goat’s meanness and uses his Random Hostility Syndrome as a source of entertainment. The moral? Learn your grammar and “demember— / nobody likes a dubnoxious beasty.” Claflin peppers his tale with such moose-isms as distremely and angrify, and his Northern Piney Woods amunals include busterflies. There is also some impressive vocabulary on display—trajectory, apogee, process, soporific, synergistic—and, of course, the whole concept of the double negative is at the heart of baby troll’s solution. Stimson’s illustrations are as droll as ever, his characters full of personality, and spreads that are packed with details will require repeat readings to uncover them all.
Between the moose dialect and the story’s twist, this may not be one of your grandmother’s tales, but even she won’t be able to resist a few chuckles. Hysterical. (audio CD) (Fractured fairy tale. 7-12)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-87483-952-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: August House
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
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