An unnecessary stink-quel.
Gassy friends save the day in this follow-up to No One Likes a Fart (2019).
BFFs Burp and Fart—clouds rendered, respectively, in hues of purple and brown—float about, offending everyone with their pungent odors. Burp begins to feel bad about that, so she rolls around in flower petals. That doesn’t help; a young couple still turn up their noses when she wafts by. On her way back to Fart, Burp’s smell drives off some bullies who are tormenting a smaller girl. Burp tells Fart about it, and they decide to don capes and become superheroes. When they see a crook (wearing a mask and a black-and-white outfit) stealing a car, they float into the car and stink him out. They continue to do super-stinky good deeds until they find a kindergarten in danger of being crushed by a falling tree in a storm. They try to evacuate the building, but they aren’t stinky enough. (The kids and teachers have smelled far worse.) Fart has a great idea: Get Sewage Gas to help. Sewie, who inexplicably speaks in broken English, gets everyone to leave and saves the day. Blake’s forced, flat fable of flatulence won’t inspire much tittering beyond the first toot. Nickel’s illustrations of humans of varying skin tones resemble Saturday morning cartoons, but the speech bubbles, full of attempted potty humor, add little. Most readers will wish this Australian import had stayed Down Under like the emissions that inspired it.
An unnecessary stink-quel. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9780593753118
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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