Still called “Toddie” (though now he looks more like a preschoolah), the Bunyanesqe Mainer first met in The Wicked Big Toddlah (2007) tours the Big Apple—both with and without his normal-sized parents. Awed by the city’s scale even though he himself is tall enough to brush Grand Central Station’s starry ceiling, Toddie enjoys a Yankees game (“HOMAAH!”) but loses his parents when the train they are on pulls out during a moment of distraction. He suffers momentary pangs but then enjoys an afternoon playing in Central Park and environs with ant-sized fellow urchins. At last he does the King Kong thing to find his errant custodians (who get all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge before they realize they have lost their towering son). The next morning he wades out to the Statue of Liberty before taking a seat on (literally) the train home. Hawkes decks his gargantuan tourist out in loud summer casuals topped by a red buffalo-plaid wool cap, surrounds him with crowds that take even less notice of him than his parents do and finishes off the lark with a bit of goofery as Toddie is forced to return a certain oversized “souvenir.” A memorable excursion for city residents and would-be tourists alike. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-86188-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work.
A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0689845049
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
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