It's a story that feels too gimmicky and slight to engage readers deeply within a game structure that doesn't offer much...
A choose-your-own-adventure app filled with animals and quests to determine the reader's values is ambitious, but not nearly varied enough to hold up to repeated readings.
In a world that has fallen into fear after being overtaken by a vague force referred to as the "Darkness," the reader takes the role of a Guardian tasked with acting as a savior. A set of short, branching stories involve talking to animals about ways to combat the Darkness. A bear, for instance, wants to use brute force, but other creatures are either ambivalent or only on board with the crusade once they're helped out of a jam. It's an intriguing premise, but the execution is much more limited than even the most basic adventure computer games of two decades ago. Choices are usually limited to two options, and one option is usually wrong. Playing through this game of a story only two or three times reveals the right path to avoid the story's pitfalls, and the ending varies only slightly based on the reader's choices. The artwork, at least, is distinctive and varied, with clever design work giving life to frogs, snakes, sneaky foxes and other animals. There's also a set of achievements to be earned based on decisions made in the story with values assigned like "being healthy," "being brave" or "being honest and fair." There's a nugget of a great idea in the app, but it feels far too short and limited to be truly immersive. Its constant repetition of references to the menacing Darkness begins to lose its power after the first dozen or so mentions, too.
It's a story that feels too gimmicky and slight to engage readers deeply within a game structure that doesn't offer much challenge or reason for repeated reads. (iPad storybook app. 5-10)Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Nekudat Mifne
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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