Culturally and aesthetically leagues away from such American outings as Miss Smith's Incredible Storybook by Michael Garland...
Arty, heavily worked pictures give this sketchy account of a child’s first visit to a public library a distinctively sophisticated look and tone.
Surrounded by tall piles of volumes that are blurred to anonymity, Thomas first brings a scarily feral wolf and a red-hooded woman with heavy eye makeup to life from a collection of fairy tales. He flees by choosing appropriate words from a dictionary and atlas and sails past “treasure” and a “mermaid” to other quick adventures. Though necessary to follow the storyline, the text (available in English or French) is a secondary element that appears on overlaid white strips and has to be manually summoned into view with the tap of an icon. Perhaps as a result of translation, it runs to wooden lines like “Thomas hastily picks up another book and gleans some more sea related words to help him navigate.” Richard mixes heavily processed photos, paint applied in broad daubs and swirls, and flat cartoon figures into grainy, visually complex compositions. Colors transform, floating letters form into words, and little robots or other figures drift past or pop into view. In addition to an optional audio narration, chuckles and other low-key sound effects join a short loop of pleasant orchestral background music. In the end, Thomas writes his way back into the library and departs with his miniskirted mom on a wink from the voluptuously tressed librarian.
Culturally and aesthetically leagues away from such American outings as Miss Smith's Incredible Storybook by Michael Garland (2003), though it springs from the same root. (iPad storybook app. 6-8)Pub Date: July 14, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: La Souris Qui Raconte
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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
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
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