The events of a day at a combination animal shelter and veterinary office are detailed in this oversized and overly busy picture book from Casey (Beep! Beep! Oink! Oink! Animals in the City, 1997, etc.). Her bold collage illustrations are done in an interesting though hectic style with a combination of photographs, patterned papers, and watercolor shapes, augmented with hand-lettered speech balloons and animal sounds. Additional small pencil drawings are added to sidebars printed on checked backgrounds, and the combination of all these different artistic styles added to several type sizes creates a disconcerting whole common to many British imports. The text is written in first-person from a visiting photographer’s viewpoint, but there is too much information (not all of it riveting) included about the nine clinic employees and all the various animals they help in just one day. Although Casey’s collage style is intriguing, and both her human and animal characters in watercolor are charming, there’s not enough story to work as a picture book or enough information to succeed as easy nonfiction. Cute critters, but not strong enough to cross the pond. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1210-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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