A bland retelling, well stocked with pedagogical features.
A sweet version of the tale, with Disney-style cartoon illustrations and a carriage full of literacy-building tools.
With help from her matronly “godmother, who was a fairy,” Cinderella meets and weds the Prince, forgiving her stepsisters Drizella and Anastasia (her stepmother vanishes after an early cameo) and going on to live at court “happily, with the Prince and their many children.” The text and an optional audio narration that comes with both highlighted words and auto-advance can be switched between French and English on any page. A swinging cord visible on every page (even the credits) pulls down a menu of further options—pronouncing individual words at a touch, displaying for selected words either a brief definition or a small image, even highlighting all the vowels. The illustrations are not touch sensitive, but they move or transform smoothly. In fact, touching the screen isn’t a good idea, as it seems to derail the app, causing all sound to cease until the “play” button is tapped; multiple touches create a sort of pantomime as the characters continue to move silently, cause the menu bar to flicker, set off a page turn and sometimes disassociate the text from the art.
A bland retelling, well stocked with pedagogical features. (iPad storybook/educational app. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Chocolapps
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
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
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
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