A fun gorilla tale that’s perfect for parents lap reading to giggling youngsters.
Two brothers find a caged green ape and discover how far the creature will go to catch them in this rhyming debut picture book.
Mark and his big brother, Stu, who have tan skin, are familiar with the stories about the giant gorilla on a nearby island—but they don’t believe the tales. Despite warning signs posted around the island, the boys persist in exploring until they enter a cave, where they find a cage. “In the cage was an ape that was big as a wall. / Twenty—no, Thirty—no, FIFTY feet tall!” Continuing to ignore the signs, Stu dares Mark to touch the ape, and when the gorilla roars, the boys decide to make their escape. But the ape busts out of the cage and chases them across the water, through the city, and to their grandfather’s farm, all the while enjoying the game. The reveal at the end is sure to tickle young readers, and Thompson’s illustrations offer a gorilla that’s never too scary despite his size and strange color. The digital cartoons are short on details, but the compositions imply depth and portray action effectively. Woolford’s rhymes feel almost Seussian, and the silliness of the giant ape seems in keeping with other Dr. Seuss conceits. The layout uses green text for Mark’s dialogue, blue text for Stu’s, ominous red text for the warning signs, and a larger typeface for the creature’s repeated “BOOM BOOM BOOM” sounds.
A fun gorilla tale that’s perfect for parents lap reading to giggling youngsters.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73-714041-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: Green Gorilla Books
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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