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
The insatiable elder is still ingesting the unpalatable, to kids’ everlasting amusement.
Swallowing a rainbow sets off a series of events that lead to a surprising conclusion.
The title character begins by consuming a cloud—and who hasn’t wished to do that? The cloud is meant to carry the rainbow, but why did she swallow it? The somewhat weak answer: “I don’t know why she swallowed a rainbow. Would you like to know?” The cloud is followed by glitter (kids, don’t try this at home!), then by a cone to catch the glitter, a pole to lift the cone, ribbon to tie the cone, and a horse (“silly, of course”). Then suddenly the lady starts to run, and the items painlessly reappear. The cone becomes a unicorn’s horn, and the unicorn becomes part of a small carousel with golden, beribboned poles and two more matching unicorns, topped with the glitter-sprinkled cloud and the rainbow arching over all. The dame and a half-dozen children stand watching in breathless excitement. As per the astoundingly successful formula, the repetitive text is irresistible and the zany art is more than half the fun. The dame’s head swells to accommodate a mouth capable of the necessary swallowing feats, and her small black dog—whose mouth stretches from ear to nose—is on hand to celebrate key moments. The old lady has pink skin and dark hair, and the children have a range of skin tones.
The insatiable elder is still ingesting the unpalatable, to kids’ everlasting amusement. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781546138525
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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
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