MacDonald weaves context-translated Spanish and a simple campfire song into this easy-to-learn tale of a young rabbit who outwits three predators with some help from his canny Auntie. Bounding up the mountain to grow, “¡Gordito! ¡Gordito! ¡Gordito!” on Tia Mónica’s cakes and cookies, Little Bunny encounters Señors Zorro, Tigre and León. Putting them off with a promise that he’ll be much fatter coming back down, Conejito eats and dances with Tia Mónica until he’s “healthy and strong and fat as a butterball!”—whereupon Tia Mónica pops him into a barrel and sends him rolling safely home. Valério uses warm colors in the full bleed illustrations, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out the ears and tails of his rubbery figures to create a sense of exuberant motion. A lively, and less violent, variation on Betsy Bang’s Bengali version, The Old Woman and the Red Pumpkin (1975), illustrated by Molly Garrett Bang. (source note) (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-87483-779-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little Folk/August House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
