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
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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