This Jack gets a jar of brightly colored beans for doing chores for his neighbor, and he plants them beneath his bedroom...
A contemporary urban version of the ancient tale of beans and boy, with spiky parts rounded off.
This Jack gets a jar of brightly colored beans for doing chores for his neighbor, and he plants them beneath his bedroom window right away. Overnight, it grows into a splendid leafy ladder up the side of his apartment building, and after checking it for sturdiness Jack climbs up until he can see the whole city ("WOW!"). Above the clouds, the scent of chocolate-chip cookies lures him to a castle, where he finds a giant admiring himself while his giant wife gives him a pedicure (“I look good. I smell good”). The giants immediately put Jack to work, and after a long day he races down the beanstalk with the golden-egg-laying hen under his arm. When he chops down the stalk, giant and wife tumble down—and lo! They were under a curse, which Jack has broken, and they are just ordinary-sized folk. The images are quite keen, photographs and the occasional line drawing manipulated and layered to shape the story. Mrs. Giant has a fabulous ’50s-print apron with roosters and pots, as well as lots of jewelry, and Mr. struts in boots and vest, with a red bandanna in his pocket.Pub Date: July 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8765-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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