Delicious to the last morsel.
A monster’s passion for chicken nuggets is tested in this retelling of “The Legend of Sissa ibn Dahir,” an Indian folktale centered on the concept of exponential growth.
Frank, a furry, purple monster, loves chicken nuggets, and he’s found the greatest nuggets in the world in Celeste’s food truck. But Celeste, a Black-presenting human, finds that Frank is bad for business, from his atrocious table manners to the way he scares away her paying customers. After trying a series of failed solutions—illustrated in comedic vignettes—Celeste launches a monthlong, double-or-nothing contest: Each day, the amount of nuggets participants must consume doubles, and the prize is free nuggets for life. Day 1 is easy (a single nugget!), but as the contest gets exponentially harder, more competitors drop out, leaving Frank as the last eater standing. Lively, animated illustrations depict daily crowds that watch to see if Frank can continue to eat millions of nuggets. By the final days, Celeste’s food truck is pushed to its limits, and even Frank has started struggling—especially when faced with the final day’s double-page-spread mountain of nuggets. Frank’s near-triumph and concession—what good are nuggets for life if one is thoroughly sick of them?—involve dynamic crowds and a delightfully monstrous belch. A final joke will tickle readers, and excellent endnotes contextualize exponential numbers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Delicious to the last morsel. (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-268982-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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