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THE WOLVES IN THE WALLS

You know what they say: “If the wolves come out of the walls, it’s all over.” When Lucy hears wolves crinkling, crackling, sneaking, creeping, and crumpling in the walls, she futilely attempts to warn her family. Once out of the walls, the wolves proceed to dance “wolfish dances up the stairs and down again” until Lucy, with the help of her stalwart pig-puppet, decides that enough is enough, and leads her family back—into the walls. Gaiman does here for the older picture-book set what he did for middle-grade readers with last year’s Coraline, crafting a tale of surreal and sinister adversaries who are bested by a young girl’s determination to set her world to rights. The slyly deadpan text, rich in language and wordplay, never doubts Lucy’s capacity to manage the chaos, but McKean’s illustrations are something else again, their mixed-media creepiness giving the lie to the publisher’s disingenuous “all ages” designation and marking it clearly as not for the faint of heart. (Picture book. 7-10)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-380-97827-X

Page Count: 56

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003

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CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS AND THE TYRANNICAL RETALIATION OF THE TURBO TOILET 2000

From the Captain Underpants series , Vol. 11

Dizzyingly silly.

The famous superhero returns to fight another villain with all the trademark wit and humor the series is known for.

Despite the title, Captain Underpants is bizarrely absent from most of this adventure. His school-age companions, George and Harold, maintain most of the spotlight. The creative chums fool around with time travel and several wacky inventions before coming upon the evil Turbo Toilet 2000, making its return for vengeance after sitting out a few of the previous books. When the good Captain shows up to save the day, he brings with him dynamic action and wordplay that meet the series’ standards. The Captain Underpants saga maintains its charm even into this, the 11th volume. The epic is filled to the brim with sight gags, toilet humor, flip-o-ramas and anarchic glee. Holding all this nonsense together is the author’s good-natured sense of harmless fun. The humor is never gross or over-the-top, just loud and innocuous. Adults may roll their eyes here and there, but youngsters will eat this up just as quickly as they devoured every other Underpants episode.

Dizzyingly silly. (Humor. 8-10)

Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-545-50490-4

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014

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A SNOW DAY FOR PLUM!

Lively fun with animal friends.

Has Plum’s pep deserted him?

Several animals from the Athensville Zoo are on their way to visit an elementary school. Overconfident Itch the ningbing (an Australian marsupial), unaware that zookeeper Lizzie will be doing all the talking, looks forward to “lecturing eager young minds.” Plum, the usually chipper peacock, on the other hand, is anxious—maybe the schoolchildren won’t like him or he’ll get lost. So when they arrive at the school to find the students have been sent home due to a blizzard, Plum is relieved. The animals are left in a school gym for the night until three self-important class mice free them. Itch heads for the library to meet the learned turtle, but Plum reluctantly explores with his friends. When his anxiety peaks, they reassure him, and when the mice reject Meg, another peacock, as “borrrring” and uncool, they buoy her as well before everyone comes together to save Itch, who finds himself outside and stranded in a snowdrift. Unlike Leave It to Plum (2022), this is not a mystery, and the relationship focus shifts from Lizzie to the rodents, but the pace is brisk, and sequel seekers will be pleased to revisit familiar characters (if dismayed that Itch’s longing for knowledge leads to his downfall). In Phelan’s engaging grayscale pen-and-wash illustrations, Lizzie has short curly hair; text and art cue her as Latine.

Lively fun with animal friends. (how to draw Plum) (Chapter book. 7-10)

Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-06-307920-5

Page Count: 128

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023

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