Unfortunately, the worthy message is overshadowed by its single-minded, intense delivery, which feels more like propaganda...
A heavy-handed allegorical tale about consumerism, fair trade and social conscience.
Gluttonous and hedonistic Princess Occidiane is fat, selfish, demanding and completely unaware of what her piggishness costs others. Eventually, her appetite devours most of the planet’s resources, which wreaks serious economic and environmental havoc. What to do? A page appears with three “buttons,” which each leads to a different solution—and thus there’s a trio of different endings to the story. All three outcomes offer some scathing social commentary. It appears that Occidiane represents the ugly face of Western consumerism, things like entitlement, greed, oppression and ecological irresponsibility. Fair enough. But the story fails to offer anything but binary characters—perpetrator/victim, entitled/disadvantaged, consumers/laborers—and as such, it comes across as didactic and reductionist, even disparaging. Interactive features are plentiful but simple. Certain words or phrases function as “hyperlinks” that animate and/or advance the story, and some of the lovely illustrations also produce additional images when tapped. The magical background music—Saint Saëns’ “The Aquarium”—can be switched on or off, but narration (in French or English) is a page-by-page decision. This storybook app is technologically solid, and it brings up some important issues that kids would do well to contemplate and discuss as they develop social consciences.
Unfortunately, the worthy message is overshadowed by its single-minded, intense delivery, which feels more like propaganda than storytelling. (iPad storybook app. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: La Souris Qui Raconte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
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