Rhythm and energy abound as a young girl sings herself a map of her trip to the grocery store and back. Accompanied by an older brother, sent along by her mother to make sure she doesn’t get lost, she proves through her song that she knows the way and can also sing her way back, repeating the refrain, “It’s my city!” in combination with the sights and sounds along the way. “Click, clunk, click, clunk. It’s my city!” Depicted in bold gouache in primary colors, the two pass such landmarks as the laundromat (“Shake, slosh, shake, slosh”), a train (“Rattle, rattle, shake”), and restaurants (“Sputter, sizzle, pip, pop!”), finally arriving back home where they are greeted by a welcome surprise. (The double-paged layout shows their route along the bottom, with a fuller depiction of each stop on the upper two-thirds of the pages.) A coda reprises the theme, “Uptown, downtown, it’s my city! / I can sing it from the end / Or from the start. / Slosh, rattle, click, I know / Squeak, sizzle, tick, / The city / Clank, hip-hop, be-bop, / By heart.” Elementary mapping, finding one’s way, and the mnemonic uses of rhythm and rhyme are all aspects of this gambol to which young children will relate. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-16915-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Floyd and Denise update “The Tortoise and the Hare” for primary readers, captioning each soft-focus, semi-rural scene with a short, simple sentence or two. Rabbit proposes running to school, while his friend Turtle takes the bus: no contest at first, as the bus makes stop after deliberate stop, but because Rabbit pauses at a pushcart for a snack, a fresh-looking Turtle greets his panting, disheveled friend on the school steps. There is no explicit moral, but children will get the point—and go on to enjoy Margery Cuyler’s longer and wilder Road Signs: A Harey Race with a Tortoise (p. 957). (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-202679-7
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
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