This title is part of Viking’s easy-to-read series, with characters inspired by Ezra Jack Keats. While Eitzen hues very close to the artwork of Keats, Suen must go farther afield than Keats’s wonderfully sparse, syncopated writing to fill the verbiage necessary to make this an early reader. A handful of children are invited over to Peter and Willie’s house to celebrate the dachshund’s birthday. Each child brings along a pet, and pretty soon the action revolves around trying to keep order in the gathering mayhem of dog, cat, bird, and fish. As the kids try to engage the animals in fun and games that would be appropriate for a human party, the animals resist: the cat will not wear a hat, thank you, and Willie is not happy to be blindfolded, even for a game of give-the-dog-a-bone. Ultimately, the cat goes after the fish, Willie goes after the cat, the cake crashes to the floor (but that doesn’t stop anyone from eating it). A fairly joyous little effort, one that keeps the words hopping to keep the readers reading: “Meow! purred the cat. She put her paw into the fishbowl. ‘My fish!’ said Susie. She let go of the blindfold. ‘Shoo! Shoo! Go away!’ Willie jumped out of Peter’s arms. Arf! Arf! he barked. Meow! went the cat.” As Peter says when he rescues the fishbowl, “Safe,” and not a bad idea for reaching a new audience. (Easy reader. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-88943-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
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