In this mini-adventure, the grumpy villain is a deceptively deep puddle. The crafty mud first lures a pizza truck into its apparently shallow depths: "Slurp." Followed in short order is a police car—"Glurp." As more vehicles come to the rescue ("Blurp," "Flurp," "Plurp"), they all succumb to the muddy, sticky gunk and stuck they stay, but before the young reader can despair, it's "preschool to the rescue!" The perspective suddenly widens, and the viewer sees that the vehicles are toys. As they rush onto the schoolyard, each lively preschool animal is armed with a shovel or a Popsicle stick and they go to work extricating the little trucks. Once they have done that, they utterly vanquish the mud puddle by fashioning it into pies, pizzas, and cookies, getting wonderfully grubby in the process. Sierra (The Gift of the Crocodile, 2000, etc.) tells her chirpy story in repetitive prose as the puddle victims accumulate. Hillenbrand's (Kiss the Cow, 2000, etc.) illustrations are double-paged delights. The mud puddle is not merely brown, but illuminated by subtle hues of purple, blue, pink, green, turquoise, red, and orange while still retaining its essential muckiness (and two eyes and a nose). The preschoolers dressed in ultra-bright rain gear make it clear that a little mud never hurt anyone—in fact, it might even add to the fun. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-202035-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gulliver/Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
A joyful if simplistic celebration of Chinese New Year culture.
A kid tries to catch a good-luck dragon hiding around town as the family prepares for Chinese New Year following the formula established in How To Catch an Elf (2016) and other series installments.
After hearing Mom wish for a dragon to bring health and fortune for the new year, a boy (presumably Chinese) and several friends (of varying racial presentations) discover a dragon lurking about town. Among the Chinese-style architecture of the town buildings, they employ various fantastical lures related to Chinese culture to catch it, including a web of noodles and sticky rice, a giant red lantern, gold coins, and a dragon dance. The simple and often awkward rhyming quatrains leave no room for deeper insights into Chinese culture, but each stanza does include one or two highlighted words whose Chinese translation can then be found within the illustration. The entire text is translated into Simplified Chinese with Pinyin in the backmatter for cross-referencing. Elkerton’s digitally painted, colorful cartoon illustrations depict a diverse cast of modern-looking children against a backdrop of a traditional Chinese village. Ultimately, despite the protagonist’s failure to catch the dragon, it is being within the embrace of a loving family (depicted as a mother and a grandmother) that is the luckiest of all.
A joyful if simplistic celebration of Chinese New Year culture. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9369-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sure to assuage the fears of all astronauts bound for similar missions.
A genius way to ease kids into the new adventure that is kindergarten.
In an imaginative ruse that’s maintained through the whole book, a young astronaut prepares for his mission to Planet Kindergarten. On liftoff day (a space shuttle–themed calendar counts down the days; a stopwatch, the minutes), the small family boards their rocket ship (depicted in the illustrations as the family car), and “the boosters fire.” They orbit base camp while looking for a docking place. “I am assigned to my commander, capsule, and crewmates.” Though he’s afraid, he stands tall and is brave (not just once, either—the escape hatch beckons, but NASA’s saying gets him through: “FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION”). Parents will certainly chuckle along with this one, but kindergarten teachers’ stomach muscles will ache: “[G]ravity works differently here. We have to try hard to stay in our seats. And our hands go up a lot.” Prigmore’s digital illustrations are the perfect complement to the tongue-in-cheek text. Bold colors, sharp lines and a retro-space style play up the theme. The intrepid explorer’s crewmates are a motley assortment of “aliens”—among them are a kid in a hoodie with the laces pulled so tight that only a nose and mouth are visible; a plump kid with a bluish cast to his skin; and a pinkish girl with a toothpick-thin neck and huge bug eyes.
Sure to assuage the fears of all astronauts bound for similar missions. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1893-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
