Reporting in verse on his world-spanning travels, naturalist B.B. Barnswhitten sets out in search of 14 rarely (or never) seen creatures from the golden toad to the Loch Ness Monster. He has no success, but sharp-eyed readers will, as Filippucci hides animals and animal shapes in each lushly detailed land- or seascape’s rocks, clouds and foliage. Irritatingly for adults and confusingly for children, the still-extant creatures aren’t distinguished from the extinct and imaginary ones until a set of profiles at the end, which provides basic information on habitat, description, behavior, diet and status (extinct, endangered, nonexistent). The light, tongue-in-cheek presentation is at war with such grim entries as the Steller’s Sea Cow’s: “Extinct, 1768 (only 27 years after being discovered by Steller), due to overhunting for meat and oil.” Though the poet sometimes labors—“I searched the night jungle, / I looked high and low, / For the curious parrot, / The strange kakapo…”—fans of Graeme Base’s Water Hole (2001) and its ilk will enjoy playing “spot the beastie,” as long as they aren’t in it for the information. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58536-433-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Polacco again exercises the surprising streak of goofiness revealed in The Graves Family (2003). Doug and Shalleaux Graves take off, with attendant children, oversized spiders and other household companions for Lake Bleakmire—a site so isolated that, along with Vernicious Knids, gnashing knarps, bilge leeches and other atypical fauna, the last Flatulent Sulphuric Fermious Flying Griffin (more commonly known as fire breathing dragon) lurks. Several misadventures later the Graves break away, despite the lonely monster’s efforts to trap them, only to discover back home that it has followed along, eager for more of Mrs. Graves’s delectable Jum Jill pastries. Wielding her brushes in a quicker, more cartoony fashion than usual, Polacco places her freewheeling, carrot-topped clan amid all sorts of oogy creatures, capped by a scaly, bat-winged behemoth whose explosive eructations ultimately provide the town of Union City with its most spectacular Fourth of July fireworks show ever. Delightfully gross and utterly unserious. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-399-24369-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005
In this send-up of a familiar tale, a hard-of-hearing fairy manages to modify the crib-side curse so that instead of dying under the wheels of a pie wagon, the princess will turn into a sleeping dragon, who can only be awakened by a quince. Up grows the princess, so perfect thanks to her other fairy gifts that she has no friends, and when the curse finally strikes, she is transformed into a huge, snoring dragon—with red lips and nails, in Fine’s typically boisterous illustrations. Nor can any wake her, until the arrival of dapper Prince Quince, whose kiss reverses the curse . . . with, that is, one important exception that only becomes apparent on their wedding night. Nonetheless, thanks to a pair of earplugs “they lived happily—and noisily—ever after.” Hale gives the story a frog narrator, a cast with silly names and the lightly applied message that nobody’s quite perfect. Set this next to the similarly themed likes of Jane Yolen’s Sleeping Ugly (1981) or Margie Palatini’s Three Silly Billies (2005). (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-216314-3
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2008
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