A seeming friendship turns out to be anything but in this startling double debut. In the art, created with deceptive simplicity from geometric shapes, bright solid colors, and occasional clipped photos, a yellow bird poses next to a blue boat, a white hotel, and a red electric guitar in succession, as a small black spider asks puzzled questions: “Why don’t you fly across the sea?” “I like to sail, actually.” “Why don’t you make a nice, cozy nest?” “I like hotels, actually.” Also, explains the bird, dancing on the beach, taking luxurious baths, and wearing striped socks. Readers expecting another comfortably conventional take on the pleasures of being unconventional are in for a shock, though, as Spider’s next question is its last: “Why don’t you eat some yummy, squelchy worms?” “Actually . . . I like to eat spiders.” Gulp. Not nice—not nice at all. The art and very brief text will steer this toward younger readers; the plot may provide a bit of emotional preparation for later encounters with the likes of “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” or Hilaire Belloc’s genially savage verses. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58234-874-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
Essentially a follow-up to Robert Kraus’s Leo the Late Bloomer (1971) and like tales of developing competency, this follows an exuberant child from morning wash-up to lights out at night, cataloguing the tasks and skills he has mastered. Activities include dressing himself and joining in school activities, choosing his own books, helping with dinner and other household responsibilities, and taking a bath alone before bedtime. In Aliki’s sunny, simplified pictures, it’s a child’s world, seen from low angles and with adults putting in only occasional appearances. Like the lad, the fitfully rhymed text gallops along, sometimes a little too quickly—many illustrations are matched to just a word or two, so viewers aren’t always given much time to absorb one image before being urged on to the next—but underscoring the story’s bustling energy. Young readers and pre-readers will respond enthusiastically to this child’s proud self-assurance, and be prompted to take stock of their own abilities too. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-028929-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches...
Listeners will quickly take up the percussive chorus—“Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy town! Is the trash truck full yet? NO”—as they follow burly Mr. Gilly, the garbage collector, on his rounds from park to pizza parlor and beyond.
Flinging cans and baskets around with ease, Mr. Gilly dances happily through streetscapes depicted with loud colors and large, blocky shapes; after a climactic visit to the dump, he roars home for a sudsy bath.
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches Eve Merriam’s Bam Bam Bam (1995), also illustrated by Yaccarino, for sheer verbal and visual volume. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027139-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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