With hijinks and hilarity hidden on every page, this is a sweet, strange, wordy tale bound to delight all who pick it up.
The creators of A Child of Books (2016) are back with another charming work of metafiction.
A little dictionary notices that while other books tell stories, she’s just a list of definitions. Eager for change, Dictionary decides to bring her words to life, and things almost immediately get out of hand. A hungry alligator invades the D pages in search of a doughnut, which bounces further into the dictionary, running into a ghost, the moon, and a queen. All the while, and on almost every page, clues to the personalities, wants, and needs of the now-living words appear in the dictionary definitions, which are original, hilarious, and impressively plentiful. Things literally spiral into chaos thanks in large part to the appearance of a tornado, spilled ink, a Viking, and more. It takes Dictionary’s friend Alphabet, who has a helpful little song, to get things back in order once more. Unimaginable care has been taken with the very real handmade books that visibly bookend the story (the dictionary is noticeably worse for wear by the end). Meanwhile, pages are filled to the brim with tiny details for eyes both young and old to find and enjoy (for instance, the editors of this dictionary are listed as “Woliver Effers and Jam Spinston”). The occasional human characters have fanciful skin tones.
With hijinks and hilarity hidden on every page, this is a sweet, strange, wordy tale bound to delight all who pick it up. (Picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781536235500
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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