Little listeners will be chanting right along with the book: “Go-go baby power!”
While her “perfect little brother” appears quiet and well behaved, Superhero Baby (really more a toddler than a baby, but OK) rescues kittens from trees with a cleverly pinned diaper, plugs dangerous water-main ruptures with a spare teddy bear, and even rescues her father and the family dog from domestic dangers. She manages to fit it all into a busy baby day, with time for wailing over unwanted diaper changes and naps. But after she is called upon to rescue a stranded dinghy, readers may begin to wonder what could account for quite so much need for superhero rescues? Is there a villain to blame? Young readers will enjoy watching Superhero Baby solve the mystery—and then going back time and time again to find all the clues planted in the illustrations. This glossy book shines with cheery, colorful artwork highlighted by clever juxtapositions of everyday baby life with episodes of derring-do. Quatrains rhyme in an abcb pattern: “It’s time for Baby’s nap now, / but heroes never sleep! / (Unlike her perfect brother / who doesn’t make a peep.)” They combine with a catchy refrain of “GO-GO BABY POWER” for an effortless read-aloud. The brown-skinned protagonist’s family is portrayed as an interracial one, with Black-appearing mom and White-appearing dad.
Little listeners will be chanting right along with the book: “Go-go baby power!” (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68464-058-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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
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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