Amusing and accessible.
Moby Shinobi, a young ninja, is eager to use his many skills to help Farmer Bob with his myriad chores.
Ready to kick, spin, jab, jump, and run, Moby has good intentions, but his “help” usually ends in disastrous upheaval on the farm. His flip-and-swipe method of collecting eggs leaves shards and goo all over the coop, along with some very disturbed chickens. Ninja spinning while scooping Pitchfork Pete’s hay has everyone sneezing. Jumping with pails of slop for the pigs creates a muddy mess in the pen. Seeing the results of his good intentions, Moby laments “I did my ninja best you see. / I wish there was a job for me.” Colorful digital artwork with an animation aesthetic depicts farm animals and humans alike with oversized oval eyes reflecting the astonishment caused by Moby’s actions. Readable rhyming couplets set up the action, which is captured in sequences of one-word action verbs that accompany vignettes that depict the accumulating chaos. For example, in trying to collect eggs, Moby’s “FLIP! / SWIPE!” is followed by the chickens’ “SQUAWK! / CRACK!” Readers should laugh along with the antics, empathize with Farmer Bob’s dismay, and cheer in the end when Moby’s skills finally come in handy. Moby and Farmer Bob are light-skinned; Pitchfork Pete has brown skin.
Amusing and accessible. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-93537-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
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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A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
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BOOK REVIEW
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