If the terrain feels overfamiliar, at least it’s traveled through at a brisk pace with a plucky wanderer at its center.
A mouse ventures out in search of a new home and finds several abodes from well-known fairy tales aren’t exactly to his liking in this rhyming picture book.
A little gray mouse decides to seek adventure away from his cozy house in the base of a tree one day. And after a festive party, the tiny creature finds himself a victim of housing-structure failure (“The Three Little Pigs”), tower inaccessibility (“Rapunzel”), and overcrowding in the titular footwear in “There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.” The little mouse keeps plugging on, his tail following from tale to tale, but the lesson, when his friends pay a visit, is that home is wherever the people you love are. “For as far as you move and wherever you roam / It is family and friends who turn house into home.” The crayon drawings are whimsically Grimm while the text keeps things bright though, at times, a little off tempo. Illustrations throughout keep the mouse at a distance, focusing on the larger scenes instead as each story is referenced. There’s not much to the mouse’s own story, and it feels a bit like box-checking with the fairy tales, but there’s no denying the rodent’s simple lines and chipper adventuring make him an amiable traveling companion.
If the terrain feels overfamiliar, at least it’s traveled through at a brisk pace with a plucky wanderer at its center. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-500-65137-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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