What this app lacks in originality it makes up for in cuddly familiarity. Bear enchants, even wordlessly, and is coming into...
Employing similar techniques as The Very Hungry Bear (2012), which features the same titular ursine, this story about a persistent flea offers flashes of humor and a neat lesson about scale.
Big, brown Bear must deal with an unwelcome companion, a freeloader named Flea, who is "about to bite, / but not because he's impolite." Using effective snippets of animation, broad sound effects and a neat technical trick of zooming in and out on the tiny Flea when he's tapped, the app is invitingly playful. The illustrations are comical and well-detailed, even if the animation, as in the previous app, feels a little erratic and bouncy. Sometimes the zooming feature requires a bit of work to activate. But Bear's expressions continue to be priceless, and the floating-objects-on-water effects when he lands in the sea are impressive. In fact, a bonus game at the end of the story allows players to build a boat and then sail it on that body of water, a variation on the igloo-building feature of the earlier title. While the app doesn't feel particularly new, the story wraps up nicely with Bear and bitty Flea becoming friends after a rescue.
What this app lacks in originality it makes up for in cuddly familiarity. Bear enchants, even wordlessly, and is coming into his own as an app star young readers will be happy to see again. (iPad storybook app. 2-6)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Wheelbarrow
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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Lighthearted and un-scary enough for bedtime.
Talk show host Fallon and illustrator Deas follow up 5 More Sleeps ’Til Christmas (2020) with a story of a youngster preparing for Halloween.
“It’s FIVE more sleeps ’til Halloween, / that spooky time of year / where all the ghosts are wide awake / as nighttime’s drawing near.” A calendar page with a large numeral 5 curls before a bright orange pumpkin. An orange-haired, light-skinned moppet wearing an enormous pair of blue glasses is hunkered down in bed with Gary the dog, whose vibrant blue coloring matches the bedspread. Occasionally accompanied by a sibling, the young narrator counts down day by day, describing seasonal activities: picking out a costume, navigating a corn maze, watching scary movies, taking part in a parade, going on a hayride, and trick-or-treating. The rhyming verses are sometimes a bit rocky but always fun. The text is periodically punctuated by the word boo, which appears in large, cartoonlike lettering; that, along with the calendar countdown motif, adds a pleasant repetition. Though the child confides feelings of trepidation (“What if bats fly in my room? / I think I’ll close my window now”), descriptions of scary moments are always offset by brightly colored, exuberant artwork. Humor abounds: Gary looks both hilarious and sweet dressed in a ghost costume that matches the narrator’s. The final page neatly closes the circle as the child goes from anticipating the holiday to participating in it and back again.
Lighthearted and un-scary enough for bedtime. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781250857798
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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