“Not going to bed. Now nor never.” Sure that there’s a scary boy lurking beneath his bed, little monster Bobo hides in a cupboard, until a story from comfortingly massive Boo-Dad, about how he once met a (shudder) girl, teases him out. Hicks gives the tale a fluent country cadence, folding in colorful turns of phrase while dropping the occasional auxiliary or “be” verb, and in a style that echoes Barbara McClintock’s neoclassicism, Deacon depicts a family of droopy-horned, not very frightening monsters in a cozy, familiar domestic setting. When Bobo actually does find a red-headed lad beneath the bed—visiting from the other side of the closet—rather than curl up in terror, he takes Boo-Dad’s advice to grin and make friendly overtures. In no time, the two young ’uns are chatting companionably. Far and away the best reversal of Mercer Mayer’s elemental There’s a Monster in My Closet premise since Robert L. Crowe’s Clyde Monster (1976), and Jeanne Willis’s Monster Bed (1986), this will have younger readers, timorous or otherwise, flocking to it “quick as lickety-split ’n’ spit-fish.” (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-374-33685-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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