Whew. There’s definitely a new “Busytown” in town.
Doing Richard Scarry considerably more than one better, a peripatetic beagle sails through teeming cartoon seek-and-find scenes featuring over 65 named characters.
Migloo is silent but wags his uncommonly expressive tail to signal responses from “Yes, please!” to “I do love sausages—ever such a lot!” The cheery pup hitches rides to the market and town square, a factory, a school and other populous locales. Viewers hoping to make sense of all the busyness on each crowded spread would be well-advised to study the comprehensive opening gallery of Sunnytown’s human and animal residents. Though most look like Lego versions of Charlie Brown, the author gives the cast members a wide variety of skin tones, names from Eric and Molly to Amit and Mrs. Luigi, distinctive dress and pleasantly nonsexist occupations. Along with burying sly jokes in the horde, such as town physician Dr. Whom and a recognizable Mr. Dickens, the author himself walks the streets bearing signboards with challenges like “Can you find the pink knitting?” Happily, the townscape views alternate with pages of somewhat-less-dizzying scenes that offer both plot continuity and visual relief. A closing spread of matching games and other quizzes invite children to test their memories—mercifully, upside-down answers are adjacent—before bidding goodbye to the winsome Migloo.
Whew. There’s definitely a new “Busytown” in town. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7374-1
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
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