Lovers of fractured fairy tales will be amused by this further peek into the personal letters of familiar characters by the team that started it all with Dear Peter Rabbit (1994). Ms. Red Hen has just moved to Happy Valley with her brood of chicks, but her neighbors are proving to be less than neighborly. While she slaves away in her cornfield, Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks band together with the Three Pigs and Peter Rabbit to lend her a hand. Meanwhile, fed up with the trouble of trying to eat rabbits and pigs, the forest carnivores have devious plans of their own. With the help of the amateur spy Lazy Feline, Wolfy Lupus, and Fer O’Cious let the family get plump and fat on the corn. But Wolfy just can’t wait to feast and decides to prey on Hetty Hen—with disastrous results. When all is said and done, chicken is added to the list of foresworn foods for the unfortunate carnivores. The aptly named characters and addresses will delight language lovers—Turkey Lurkey, M.D., lives on Ailments Road and the “temporary” addresses of Pig One and Pig Two are listed in the Hidden Forest Directory. Readers will enjoy recalling the details of each individual character’s fairy tale from the cleverly embedded “facts” Ada sprinkles throughout the letters. While this is a great introduction to letter-writing, young readers may have trouble with this format, and will need to be kept aware of the writer and recipient of each letter. Known for both the two previous titles in this series and the Albert series of books, Tryon’s detailed illustrations fit the letters perfectly, and close observers will discover something new with each reading. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82581-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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