This terrific tater will appeal to plenty of tots.
Who rolls into action when an “escapee” from the freezer sets off an after-hours supermarket ruckus?
It’s all eyes on Supertato, racing to the rescue as someone swathes Cucumber in toilet paper, tapes Carrot to the conveyor belt with Band-Aids, and pushes hapless little veggies into a vat of gooey dip. Yes, there’s a pea on the loose—chortling evilly (“Mwah ha ha ha ha!”) and leading the intrepid tuber on a merry chase over darkened shelves that nearly sees the pursuer himself pulverized before the leering legume can be trapped in a wobbly gelatin dessert and led back to cold storage. Whew! Hendra and Linnet put googly-eyed faces on all the produce, outfit the two leads with masks and capes, and leave it to sharp-eyed viewers to spot the elusive trickster masquerading as a cherry atop a cupcake in one cartoon scene or in other concealment. The breathless, alliterative narrative eschews obvious puns (like that one), but Broccoli’s comment that “This jelly tastes of pea!” will elicit a gale of storytime snickers, and a suggestion to check freezers at home for signs of a similar “escapee” adds an equally chewy bit of wordplay to the end. The black type is occasionally set on deep blue backgrounds, making those blocks of text a challenge to read.
This terrific tater will appeal to plenty of tots. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9037-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work.
A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
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