In a book subtitled "The Amazing Guinea Pig," Judy is determined to show everyone that guinea pigs aren't lacking in brain power. She gets her chance when her pets produce a "child of their old age." Jenius (Judy doesn't spell "correcktly") is reared to be "the best-trained, most brilliant guinea pig in the whole world," proud of his easy mastery of dog tricks and even able to unlatch his own hutch from inside (resulting in a near- fatal brush with a tomcat). His "swelled head" annoys his parents who seem preoccupied with each other and who laugh at their son when he flubs his big performance on Pet's Day. In what is meant to be a humorous parallel, Judy's parents are equally dismissive of her—"Buzz off now, there's a girl." In the end, Judy's father may have to eat his hat (and Jenius's father, a plastic water bottle) but this cleverly constructed, easy reading fantasy by King-Smith (Mr. Potter's Pet, p. 532, etc.) is not up to his best. (Fiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0786811358
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look...
Winning actually isn’t everything, as jazz-happy Rooster learns when he goes up against the legendary likes of Mules Davis and Ella Finchgerald at the barnyard talent show.
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look good—particularly after his “ ‘Hen from Ipanema’ [makes] / the barnyard chickies swoon.”—but in the end the competition is just too stiff. No matter: A compliment from cool Mules and the conviction that he still has the world’s best band soon puts the strut back in his stride. Alexander’s versifying isn’t always in tune (“So, he went to see his cousin, / a pianist of great fame…”), and despite his moniker Rooster plays an electric bass in Bower’s canted country scenes. Children are unlikely to get most of the jokes liberally sprinkled through the text, of course, so the adults sharing it with them should be ready to consult the backmatter, which consists of closing notes on jazz’s instruments, history and best-known musicians.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58536-688-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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