A labored effort to revive a series that never was quite as clever as it tried to be.
Another science experiment literally goes hair-raisingly wrong.
Following a 10-year hiatus, Franny returns to whip up more mad science in her bedroom laboratory. Initially rejecting her mother’s efforts to turn her on to hair spray and blow drying, Franny recalls that science is all about exploring the unknown (“Even if it’s the really super-weird stuff that moms like”) and so whips up a line of twisted beauty products. These include a Cosmetic Bazooka that blasts out whole, heavily made-up faces and “shoe polish” that turns high heels into really high heels. Eventually a version of the latter not only extends her pigtails to Rapunzel length, but brings them to life—whereupon they snip themselves off and rush out to menace every barber shop, salon, and furry pet in town. Cue a seesaw struggle which Franny, with help from her canine assistant Igor, ends by temporarily immobilizing her errant locks with hair spray and then presenting her mom with a new “fur” coat. Franny’s enthusiasm for hands-on experimentation, and the slightly menacing grimace she sports in many of the ink-and-wash cartoons that fill half or more of nearly every page, may add a certain raffish charm, but the quaint, not to say sexist, satiric tropes went stale long ago. Franny and her mom present white.
A labored effort to revive a series that never was quite as clever as it tried to be. (Science fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: July 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1337-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode.
A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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