An often delightful, unexpected coming-of-age tale that unlocks the story behind a youngster’s silence.
A debut children’s tale of a traumatized girl’s journey to discover her own special gifts.
“She was only four when the accident happened, but she remembered her mother’s lap.” With this haunting sentence, Bell hints at a likely explanation for why her main character doesn’t speak. The author wisely leaves that part of the story dangling, though, creating suspense as she explores the world of Molly, an 8-year-old orphan who can’t, or won’t, talk. Molly begins to believe what she hears people saying about her—that a cat got her tongue. But even though she doesn’t speak, she hears more than most other people do. Like Dr. Doolittle, she can communicate with animals, and she finds friends in spiders, dogs, and cats. She partners with cocker spaniel Rusty and black Labrador Tony to track down the cat who stole her tongue. Bell’s depictions of Rusty’s antics are captivating; for example, he loves the smell of the garbage dump and makes a game out of distracting a farmer who’s angry at the trio for sleeping in his barn. Rusty also explains that cats talk to him: “They call me names when I chase them. FLAP-EARS, SLOBBER FACE, STINKY FUR-BALL.” With the help of her animal friends, Molly unlocks her ability to talk and solves the mystery of why the town’s cats have been disappearing. Overall, this book offers a fun glimpse into the world of animals as humans imagine it, and Martin’s black-and-white drawings, which appear to have been done in charcoal or pencil, gently add dimension to Bell’s words. However, some of its characterizations fall short. For example, the author predictably depicts Max, the cat that Molly believes took her tongue, as rough but with a heart of gold. Similarly, Molly’s aunt feels like a caricature of a heartless relative stuck with a child she doesn’t want. Still, these flaws only minimally detract from the overall story.
An often delightful, unexpected coming-of-age tale that unlocks the story behind a youngster’s silence.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Ambient Light Publishers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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