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BENNY AND PENNY IN THE BIG NO-NO!

When fractious mouse siblings Benny and Penny observe that a new neighbor has moved in next door, curiosity leads them into a big no-no: climbing the fence to see if perhaps the newcomer may have stolen Benny’s missing pail. The neighbor has curious footprints; might it be a monster? Hayes psychologically develops the suburban jungle masterfully, with a keen understanding that, to the small child, next door is as exotic as Inner Mongolia. His sunny, detailed scenes tell the story in sequential panels, punctuated by the children’s tearful outbursts, as stormy and temporary as summer showers. The illustrations provide just enough visual storytelling to allow emergent readers to focus on the dialogue, rendered in speech balloons, the standard vocabulary of preschoolers exactly in tune with readers’ capabilities: “You can’t just TAKE stuff,” Benny says as he climbs; “Uh-oh! This [mud pie] on the end is all broken!” exclaims the neighbor monster. Benny and Penny make agreeable protagonists, all sibling-squabbling when they’re on their own but uniting against the depredations of the “monster” and doing the right thing when it’s called for. (Graphic early reader. 5-8)

Pub Date: May 5, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-9799238-9-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: RAW Junior/TOON Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009

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I WISH YOU MORE

Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.

A collection of parental wishes for a child.

It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.

Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: April 1, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015

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RAPUNZEL

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008

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