This latest from the overly prolific Gibbons reads like an encyclopedia article but looks even worse due to shockingly abysmal artwork. She covers a history of horses, the names of the parts of their bodies, a brief overview of their physical characteristics and activities, but includes many errors and oversimplifications—a crossbred horse does not necessarily, for example, have “at least one parent that is not a purebred.” (Any horse descended from purebred horses of different breeds is a crossbred.) Hoof oil does not keep hooves from cracking. Grooming a horse does far more than make a horse “look beautiful.” Gibbons’s people always look plastic; here, her horses suffer a wide variety of physical maladies and joint deformations. Worse, all the horses look the same, yet are labeled as different breeds—a Holstein depicted as a smallish animal jumping, a Morgan and a Quarter Horse identical except for color, a yearling just like a Thoroughbred just like a Hackney. For proof that horse books can be accurately and invitingly illustrated with drawings, look to Margot Apple’s Appaloosa to Zebra. For interesting horse books, look anywhere else. (Nonfiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-8234-1703-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
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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