Too mean-spirited to be really funny.
The drama behind an upcoming pet parade, told in epistolary style.
Simon, Andy’s cat, is writing to Baxter, Andy’s dog. Simon invites Baxter to march in the upcoming pet parade, taking Simon’s place. Baxter replies affirmatively with wriggly enthusiasm and atrocious spelling. When Simon asks Baxter what his costume will be and reminds him to be more attentive to his spelling, Baxter writes back that the costume is a secret, that “speling is…not vary fun,” and that he has given Simon the nickname of Cat Man. Simon says he doesn’t want a nickname, but Baxter persists, insensitively. While Simon is unfailingly polite in his epistolary quest to find out what Baxter’s costume is, readers may detect in the responses he receives that he is not altogether an innocent party. Nevertheless, many of those responses are noticeably ungracious. And Baxter, with his willful dismissal of Simon’s feelings, adds to the story’s pervasively subtle mean-spiritedness. Backmatter gives a “Doggie Dictionary” that translates Baxter’s ubiquitous misspellings into proper words, but as a device, his habit is more intrusive than cute, often forcing readers who are trying to master spelling themselves to sound out what should be sight words to glean meaning. Andy is White, as is his chief competitor, and his friend Noah is a child of color. Atteberry renders expressions well, but the goldfish with the big red lips and long eyelashes is tiresomely stereotypical, as is the apparently elderly snail delivering the letters.
Too mean-spirited to be really funny. (Fiction. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4493-9
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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