A worthy but not uncommon premise, developed elsewhere with better writing and art.
A young collector repurposes found junk, bringing his scoffing peers along on a flight of fancy.
To Zane a hubcap is a “flying saucer’s crest,” a brown bag with armholes becomes a warrior’s shield and other litter is similarly transformed. Initially dismissive, the other kids in his urban neighborhood are soon marching along behind brandishing their own finds—and gathering at last aboard a packing-crate “ship” constructed in an empty lot. Though thematically kin to Antoinette Portis’ Not a Box (2006) and other celebrations of imaginative play, it’s a poor relation. Bennett’s rhyming cadences are occasionally forced: “One day I went rambling / and found a long lasso.” Moreover, the multicultural cast of children in Murphy’s seedy settings have oddly misshapen facial features, and one discovery (“Hey! What’s that?”) is rendered as a visual jumble that will leave readers confused about what they’re supposed to be seeing.
A worthy but not uncommon premise, developed elsewhere with better writing and art. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-936474-06-6
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Bright Sky Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up.
Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields.
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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