Jahn-Clough’s low-key tale of friendship breaks no new ground but is pleasantly quirky nonetheless. Felicity and Cordelia are bunny best friends. When Felicity, the tall, grey one, decides to go hot-air ballooning, short, brown Cordelia decides to keep her feet firmly on the ground. Felicity promises to write every day, and pie-baking Cordelia asks her to head home soon. An unfortunate (but not too scary) accident strands Felicity “far away.” Once she realizes she can’t figure out how to fix the balloon, Felicity comes up with the perfect way to get back home, much to Cordelia’s relief. The expressively childlike illustrations are as straightforward as the plot. The bunnies are simply drawn with heavy black outlines. Settings vary from pastoral sweeps of green fields and blue skies to cozy, brightly colored interiors with limited detail. Perspectives are flat, though scratchy shading is used to indicate texture. The bunnies’ differences are played up amusingly in both words and pictures, but there’s still not enough here to make Felicity and Cordelia stand out from the odd-couple crowd—though Felicity’s letters home lend themselves nicely to classroom application. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-32300-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2011
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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