Meeting the new neighbors turns into a monstrous affair for the intrepid Sophie in this wry tale. Although her mother has invited the next-door neighbors over for dinner, the redoubtable Sophie believes she is just too wily to fall for their tricks. She knows they are monsters, even if her mother inexplicably does not. Much to her surprise, Sophie finds some common ground with Charlie, the young blue monster, discovering that he loves to make noise and be silly, too. Debut author-illustrator Case carefully balances Charlie and Sophie’s similarities and differences, guiding readers to the conclusion that sometimes the new and different can be just as much fun and friendship-worthy as the familiar. His ink, watercolor and gouache illustrations feature an imaginative world of monster properties, the finely detailed drawings brimming with clever minutiae. The narration is a spot-on complement to the often laugh-out-loud images, telling just enough of the story to allow the pictures to go wild. This saucy, tongue-in-cheek tale has a timely message worth sharing. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8027-9756-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2008
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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