More premise than plot, but it’s funny enough to keep fledgling readers turning pages.
When Logan Applebaum's mother sends him to school with the android "cousin" she's invented, the white boy finds it difficult to keep Java's manufactured identity a secret.
That’s the intriguing idea behind a new series of short chapter books aimed at primary grade readers. Here, a thin plot centers on the upcoming science fair. Logan hopes Java (Jacob Alexander Victor Applebaum) will help him win a prize, but the android joins a different team. Character development starts promisingly, with Logan testing the flavors of different colors of his cereal, but then fizzles, as Logan proves more interested in magic than science and most interested in besting the Silverspoon twins. There’s no indication of racial diversity in the text, but the black-and-white illustrations do suggest different color shades among his classmates and teacher. Much of the humor comes from Java's Amelia Bedelia–like inability to understand figures of speech. (Early in the story he warms Logan’s "cold feet" with a blanket.) There’s not much suspense, but the narrative winds up with an explosive climax, and directions for a potato battery are included. Clocking in at under 100 pages, this series opener has a simultaneously published sequel (Soccer Shocker), with a third scheduled for next spring.
More premise than plot, but it’s funny enough to keep fledgling readers turning pages. (Fiction. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5107-1018-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some...
With a little help from his audience, a young storyteller gets over a solid case of writer’s block in this engaging debut.
Despite the (sometimes creatively spelled) examples produced by all his classmates and the teacher’s assertion that “Stories are everywhere!” Ralph can’t get past putting his name at the top of his paper. One day, lying under the desk in despair, he remembers finding an inchworm in the park. That’s all he has, though, until his classmates’ questions—“Did it feel squishy?” “Did your mom let you keep it?” “Did you name it?”—open the floodgates for a rousing yarn featuring an interloping toddler, a broad comic turn and a dramatic rescue. Hanlon illustrates the episode with childlike scenes done in transparent colors, featuring friendly-looking children with big smiles and widely spaced button eyes. The narrative text is printed in standard type, but the children’s dialogue is rendered in hand-lettered printing within speech balloons. The episode is enhanced with a page of elementary writing tips and the tantalizing titles of his many subsequent stories (“When I Ate Too Much Spaghetti,” “The Scariest Hamster,” “When the Librarian Yelled Really Loud at Me,” etc.) on the back endpapers.
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some budding young writers off and running. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0761461807
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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