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MILO'S CHRISTMAS PARADE

Name: MILO'S CHRISTMAS PARADE
Author: Jennie Palmer
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4499-0

by Jennie Palmer ; illustrated by Jennie Palmer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 2020

Doesn’t quite make it despite an abundance of enthusiasm.

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An opossum with a love for Christmas hoopla realizes a lifelong dream. Milo’s family likes the Christmas parade for all the goodies spectators drop: popcorn, nuts, candy. Milo loves the parade for its spectacle. It just so happens that Milo and his passel live near the building where the balloons and floats for the parade are designed and built. Inexplicably (to Milo), every year he is overlooked for inclusion in the parade, so finally he decides to make his dream come true himself. With a little help from his passel, he works all year long to design and build a float with a giant skiing opossum on it, to be drawn by loyal members of his passel. When the float collides with a balloon handler’s rope and is destroyed, Milo is devastated—but his passel comes through to jury-rig a new float. Racing to catch up with the parade, they come across Santa’s float, which has encountered problems of its own, and Santa and Milo ride to triumph together on Milo’s float. This quirky story features a decidedly unusual protagonist, but it meanders. Palmer’s line-and-color cartoons are frequently hard to parse, unable to fully shoulder the narrative load left by openings in the sparse, wry text. Occasional footnotes offer some explanation but not enough to carry readers seamlessly through the story. Santa presents White; other parade workers and participants are diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally with 8.5-by-21-inch double-page spreads viewed at 68.6% of actual size.) Doesn’t quite make it despite an abundance of enthusiasm. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-4197-4499-0

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMPANANNY WITCHES MAKE ONE MEAN PIZZA
by Jennie Palmer ; illustrated by Jennie Palmer

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THE TOAD

From the Disgusting Critters series

by Elise Gravel ; illustrated by Elise Gravel ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2016

A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor

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Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.

The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”

A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: July 5, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Tundra Books

Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
THIS IS MY BRAIN!
by Elise Gravel ; illustrated by Elise Gravel

- BOOK REVIEW
EVERYBODY!
by Elise Gravel ; illustrated by Elise Gravel

- BOOK REVIEW
KILLER UNDERWEAR INVASION!
by Elise Gravel ; illustrated by Elise Gravel

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KNIGHT OWL AND EARLY BIRD

From the Knight Owl series , Vol. 2

by Christopher Denise ; illustrated by Christopher Denise ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2024

An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.

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Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?

Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.

An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)