Another funny, visually rollicking work from the creator of Chester (2007) and Scaredy Squirrel (2006). (Picture book. 4-8)
A bug flies indoors, is sucked into a vacuum, and experiences the five stages of grief while entrapped.
The narrative plays it straight, but the double-page spreads—over 40 of them—tell a far livelier story. When the fly’s first imprisoned amid thick dust and sucked-up detritus, it denies and deflects: “Doesn’t get much cozier than this… / Can’t wait to tell my friends about this place!” Watt, formerly in advertising, packages each successively introduced stage as a product. “Bargaining” is a box of laundry detergent, while “Anger” is a retro-looking TV dinner. She includes a clever, visually parallel story about the household’s dachshund, whose favorite toy, a knitted, button-eyed dog, suffers the same fate as the bug. As the highly dramatic insect emotes through the five stages, using the bits and pieces it’s been sucked up with as imaginative props, the dog experiences them silently. In the “Anger” section, as the fly creates a ruckus inside, the dog attacks the vacuum, seeking his toy’s liberation. The “Acceptance” phase coincides with the discarding of the now-busted machine at the dump. There, the toy is regurgitated, and the fly emerges through the proverbial tunnel of light. A final spread shows the dog cavorting with a new canine acquaintance, while above, its former toy warms a bird’s nest of eggs.
Another funny, visually rollicking work from the creator of Chester (2007) and Scaredy Squirrel (2006). (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77049-645-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© 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.
