Clearly produced and filled with Hollywood-quality animation, voice talent and multimedia features, this retro-futurist app is out of this world in many ways. Like Jack and the Beanstalk, another winner from Ayars Animation, the story of little green space creature Cozmo's trip to his office is packed with fun. While it doesn't have a rich traditional story to lean on, as Jack did, this app goes wild with such inventions as an adorable robot chef (who doubles as a popcorn machine), zooming personal spaceships and bulbous cityscapes. The art style is reminiscent of 1950s imaginings of the space-bound future; metal antennae and gas pumps exist alongside space travelers and aliens. The story, told in (pedestrian) rhyme, is narrated by an ecstatic-sounding announcer. In an inspired bit of programming, that narration, or reader narration recorded by the app, can be pitch-adjusted with a simple slider. It's an unnecessary but very fun feature older parents who may once have played their LPs at 45 RPM will appreciate. As hard as the text tries ("Now Cozmo hopped in his swift little ship / 'Buckle your seatbelt,' the rocket would quip' "), it can't compare to the lush visuals or the plethora of elements on screen that fly, explode or, in one memorable instance, fill the screen with fire-extinguisher foam. The app’s comprehensive list of options may be daunting, but the developer has thought of everything: It includes a help document for parents that reveals every hidden nugget in the app's 10 pages. It turns out there are more than 100. Few story apps are as ambitious, as eye-catching or as playful as Cozmo's. (iPad storybook app. 4-12)
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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