Bauer and Hearn (Turtle Dreams, 1997) pair up for their second easy reader about a group of forest friends, this time with the addition of an overbearing frog that wants to claim Turtle as his best friend while excluding the other animals. Turtle tries her best to remain friends with everyone, artfully avoiding Frog’s exclusionary tactics. When a bear cub arrives on the scene, all of Turtle’s friends play a part in rescuing her, and she wisely concludes, “A turtle can’t have too many best friends.” Bauer skillfully works quite a bit of characterization and humor into her plot, which offers some spot-on comments about friendship applicable to the intended first- and second-grade audience. The text, written at the 2.4 grade level, is set in a large typeface with generous white space, and the story is logically divided into short chapters with a variety of illustration sizes and placements just right for this level. Hearn’s appealing animal characters add considerable charm to the whole, with a bossy frog, earnest turtle, inquisitive bear cub, and furious mother bear arriving on her hind legs to claim her baby. Though Frog and Turtle don’t rise to the stellar level of the Frog and Toad series, more of their group’s adventures would be welcome additions to the easy reader shelves. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-8234-1501-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2002
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.
