For a game of shinny, also called pond hockey, Bailey pits the Farm Team, a bunch of farm animals, the largest no higher than the top of the goal (according to the rules), against the Bush League Bandits, a gang of churls and louts—weasels, porcupines, grizzlies. For 50 years, the Farm Team has lost, but they’ve continued to practice and have improved. In fact, this year, the Farm Team has a winning formula, combining finesse with sheer bulk as a cow plays goalie, neatly blocking the net. Despite cheating, stomping and tromping, the barbarians gratifyingly crash and burn, thanks to the smallest of the team, Little Pete, the pig, and Mariette, the chicken. Is there a lesson here? Maybe, but it sure is fun to get to it. Slavin’s goofy acrylics playfully realize the joyful mayhem of shinny, and Bailey’s story gets the competitive burn just right, even for a bunch of chickens, sheep and piglets. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-55337-850-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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