A good and creepy (slithery just doesn’t capture the reason your neck hairs may stand on end) story of a boy and the uninvited snakes in his life, from Greenberg (who likes his creatures on the outré side: he has also tackled insects, skunks, and, famously, slugs). What is so effective here—other than Munsinger’s swarming, snaky watercolors—is that Greenberg never gets cute, but keeps the verse highly palpable: “With a horrifying rustle / Of cartilage and muscle / Very very slowly they unwind / Tongues abruptly flickering / Whispering and snickering / They wriggle off to see what they can find.” Greenberg does, however, know how to mix the fanciful with the real. “Reticulated belly snakes / sea snakes, tree snakes / Peanut-butter jelly snakes / Hyperactive flea snakes.” And Munsinger wraps her considerable wit around every loopy possibility, ensnaring her readers in a final constrictor-like hold. Come, child, and enjoy a snake or two, these “pyroclastic streams of melted crayon.” (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-316-32076-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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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