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CAMELS DON'T SKI

Name: CAMELS DON'T SKI
Author: Francesca Simon
ISBN: 1-899607-59-5

by Francesca Simon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1999

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Calamity, a camel with a peevish attitude about her life in a caravan, trades in her heavy packs for a colder climate and skis and soon yearns for her former life. It becomes quite clear that camels were not designed for snowy slopes. When perfection isn’t achieved in Calamity’s new habitat, the old woes inherent in carrying burdens through the desert seem far less tiresome the second time around. It’s a particularly easy lesson, learned without fuss or tension, depicted in Busby’s cartoonish illustrations. Readers will enjoy one go-around, but this story from Simon (see review, above) is probably too one-note and simplistic for repeat readings. (Picture book. 3-5)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999

ISBN: 1-899607-59-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Sterling

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CAN YOU HOP?

by Lisa Lawston ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999

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Hopping is not hard, for a frog, but when he asks other animals to join him, he finds that bats flap, lobsters snap, and dust flies when an especially large rhinoceros stomps. None of the creatures can do what the frog does so well, until he meets a rabbit, and it becomes a friendship bound by bounding. Vere’s creatures are reminiscent of Sandra Boynton’s: smiling, bright, and lively, unrestrained by this board book’s small dimensions. A hopping good time. (Board book. 1-4)

Pub Date: March 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-531-30131-1

Page Count: 22

Publisher: Orchard

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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OVERHEAD

by Jack M. Bickham ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 1991

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Tennis pro, Vietnam vet, and intelligence operative Brad Smith, who first served in Dropshot (1990), quits an irritating job in Texas to head for Montana, where his unusual skills are needed to open a new tennis resort and locate a murderous nearby secret agent. Well, whom else would you call to clean out the spies plaguing a mysterious Air Force lab just a backhand away from a troubled tennis camp? The debt-ridden sports resort, just bought by Smith's old tennis and spying pal Ted Treacher, provides the perfect cover for Smith—the only tennis-playing spy in America capable of recognizing his old archenemy Sylvester, the Soviet spy responsible for the death of Smith's late Yugoslavian tennis- playing wife. Sylvester, operating with a completely new face fresh from the plastic surgeon, is in Big Sky country to snatch a bit of strategic-defense technology from the research lab whose powerful secret electromagnetic pulses have been giving the local children leukemia. Also neighboring the resort is a secret toxic- waste dump owned by a beautiful but ruthless capitalist hussy who wants to close down the country club so she can get her toxic wastes back. Smith has to sort out all these secrets while cleaning up the financial and managerial mess his chum has made of what should be a fabulous destination for rich tennis players. Sylvester shoots at him, a sadistic deputy shoots at him, and Ivan Lendl shoots at him. Bodies pop out of the golf course. Credibility crushed in straight sets 6-2, 6-0, 6-1.