Geisert adds another link to his inventive, wordless chain-reaction escapades that are awash with cleverness and ingenuity. A family of five pigs is having breakfast in their house that sits cantilevered from a hill. A common mishap of a glass of spilled milk starts things rolling—literally. The milk runs through the table crack, down a drain into a paint tray, which bumps a screwdriver that turns on a buffing wheel that breaks a clothesline and wraps around a table saw, which tips over onto a wagon and turns on. The wagon rolls, the saw cuts the cornerpost of the house, causing it to tip, breaking the kitchen stovepipe that bursts a water pipe that uproots a tree. The momentum and mayhem culminate in a large rock careening downhill and crashing into the roof of the house. Whew! In the final scene, the pig family is standing together, amid the remains of the house, still smiling—somehow. More sophisticated, dark and subtle than Lights Out (2005); fans will delight in the frenetic action and maze of details in the etched illustrations and find relief in the fact that everyone is okay. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-60904-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walter Lorraine/Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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