Angry that he’s not growing up fast enough, little Olie has a “big and really bad idea.” But the button he pushes on the household “shrink-and-grow-a-lator” turns out to be the wrong one, and suddenly he’s the size of one of his kid sister Zowie’s toys. So he tries again, and this time swells up so huge that he bonks his head on the moon and burns his bottom on the sun. Olie may sound a bit precious—“I’m a little bit bigger / not a little bit smaller. / I’m a little bit taller— / I’m growing Rolie up!”—but his fourth outing, set in a digitally created alien world of rubber spheres and gleaming plastic, all in saturated hues, features Joyce’s (Sleepy Time Olie, 2001, etc.) trademark blend of the offbeat and the familiar. In the end, a chastened Olie returns to normal, with parental help, and settles down in a bed that’s “just big enough . . . for now.” Like Olie’s previous appearances, in print and on TV, the episode is neatly cut and dried, but Olie’s frustrated reaction to being told that he’s too small for this, but too big to do that any more, will find an understanding corps of young readers. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-008810-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
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
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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