Vote—but not for this candidate.
A mouse with a smile as wide as Ike’s and outstretched arms as expansive as Nixon’s runs a successful campaign for the presidency.
Woodrow G. Washingtail of Moussouri, born with a political spoon in his teeth, grows up to be an “all-American mouse of renown” and marries his Bess. He leads an exemplary small-town life, runs for town council, mayor, state senate and “governor of the whole state!” He then declares his candidacy for the nation’s “Big Cheese” as the choice of the Bull Mouse party. The husband-and-wife writing and illustrating team go on to describe the entire presidential campaign process, with information on political parties, primaries, debates, conventions, campaigns and inauguration. Woodrow is, of course, elected as “the hope of all mice, the hope of a nation” after an all-around clean and wholesome crusade. The entire “tail” is written in quatrains with an AABB rhyming scheme. Unfortunately, maintaining this structure often leads to awkward scanning and phrasing. A surfeit of puns wears thin, as Hairry King conducts an interview, Mousechusetts attends the National Convention and Senator Ed Mouse-ski debates. Amateurishly drawn full-page cartoon illustrations owe much to Richard Scarry, but are crowded and too full of toothy smiles.
Vote—but not for this candidate. (resources for parents and teachers, additional information and activities, reproducible “contract to vote.”) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59698-786-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Patriot Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
A stunning, honest, yet age-appropriate depiction of historical injustice.
Giddens’ song commemorating the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth is adapted into a picture book centering history and resilience.
Written in second person, the story begins “You brought me here / to build your house” and depicts a Black family joining enslaved Black laborers in a field, transported and supervised by a White person. The family helps the others lay bricks and pick cotton until they are sent away, with the White person gesturing for them to leave (“you told me… // GO”). Against a backdrop of green fields and blue mountains, the family finds “a place / To build my house,” enjoying freedom, until “you said I couldn’t / Build a house / And so you burnt it…// DOWN.” Beside the ashes, the family writes a song; images depict instruments and musical notes being pulled from the family; and another illustration shows White people dancing and playing. The family travels “far and wide” and finds a new place where they can write a song and “put my story down.” Instruments in hand, the family establishes itself once again in the land. This deeply moving portrait of the push and pull of history is made concrete through Mikai’s art, which features bright green landscapes, expressive faces, and ultimately hopeful compositions. Giddens’ powerful, spare poetry, spanning centuries of American history, is breathtaking. Readers who discover her music through this book and the online recording (included as a QR code) will be forever glad they picked up this book. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A stunning, honest, yet age-appropriate depiction of historical injustice. (afterword) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2252-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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