In memorable homage to his dedicatees Dr. Seuss and Edward Lear, DiTerlizzi introduces an unruly alphabet of imaginary “creachlings,” colored in flat hues to evoke the printing processes of the previous century’s middle decades and described in sprightly verse. Bidding readers, “say good-bye to boring books / where ‘bears can bounce a ball,’ ” the author, who portrays himself in the pictures as an owlish lad wielding a paintbrush, starts out conventionally enough—“A is for an Angry Ack. / He eats your dirty clothes. / His favorite snack is stinky socks / with jam packed in the toes.” Soon, however, he finds himself struggling with entries that wander in out of order, thanks to a multiplying coterie of floating, beanlike “Teedle-Weenie Woo” that, being numbers rather than letters, make a bid to hijack the whole project. Ultimately, he comes to an accommodation with the interlopers, but his effort to kick off a “123” after reaching the “Zanderiffic Zibble Zook” takes an ominous turn when Ack and company pop back into view. Fans of If I Ran the Zoo (1950), or silly alphabets in general, will delight in tracking the burgeoning chaos while trying to wrap their tongues around the droll monikers of this manic menagerie. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-689-85290-8
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-059848-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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