This is a story of magic, etched with an everydayness that encourages readers to invite wonder, even bewilderment, into...
A welcome addition to Geisert’s gratifying series of wordless oddments features a volcano, a giant seed pod and, for sure, a bunch of pigs.
A gathering of pigs live on an island. Don’t ask why, just get into the mood, as you did with Geisert’s recent production, Ice (2011), a story of another bunch of pigs living on an island, with different problems, but solved no less phantasmagorically. The pigs reside in a compound of very natty sties built at the foot of a towering volcanic peak. One day, the sea winds blow a super-colossal dandelion seed to the island. Unlike fastidious gardeners, who would have beat the seed to a pulp and tossed it in the waves, the pigs rally their forces in a terrific earthmoving project and plant the seed. Which is a good thing, for as the weed blossoms grandly, as dandelion seeds will, the volcano also gets active, raining blobs of molten lava down on the pigs’ homesteads. All of Geisert’s etchings are things of antique beauty—feasts for the eyes, the dandelion leaves alone are print-quality items—but the hail of lava has an otherworldly sinister loveliness. With the volcano spelling their doom, the pigs hitch rides on the gargantuan dandelion fluff to a neighboring island.
This is a story of magic, etched with an everydayness that encourages readers to invite wonder, even bewilderment, into their lives. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59270-115-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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