Along the same lines as David LaRochelle and Richard Egielski’s The End (February 2007), but using more predictable elements, Ahlberg and Ingman present a set of linked tales in rewind mode. Goldilocks arrives home “all bothered and hot.” Why? Because previously she had run through the forest, having climbed out of somebody’s window in the wake of being caught sleeping in someone’s bed, etc. Even before that, she had bumped into a lad named Jack with a hen under his arm . . . and so on, through Jack and Jill, the Frog Prince, Cinderella and others—and yet further back, to when all the characters were babies and, even further, the dark woods were seedlings “in the sun and the wind and the rain / under the endless sky, once upon a time. Previously.” In Ingman’s thickly brushed cartoons, small figures in contemporary dress dash through rolling fields and thick forest before regressing to a spread of diaper-clad infants, then giving way to open, almost abstract landscape. The title word’s repetition creates a verbal pattern that comes out more clearly when spoken aloud, but even solitary young readers will follow the plot easily—in either direction. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3542-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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
The creators of Punctuation Takes a Vacation (2003) sentence readers to a good time with this follow-up. Feeling left out after the children in Mr. Wright’s class thunder outside for a Field Day, the nouns and verbs left in the classroom decide to organize events of their own. But having chosen like parts of speech for partners—“Glue, Markers and Tape stuck together. Shout wanted to be with Cheer. So did Chew and Eat.”—it quickly becomes apparent that as opposing teams they can’t actually do anything. Depicting the Nouns as objects and the Verbs as hyperactive v-shaped figures, Rowe creates a set of high-energy scenes, climaxing in a Tug of Words and other contests once the participants figure out that they’ll work better mixed rather than matched. This playful introduction to words recalls Ruth Heller’s Kites Sail High (1998) and Merry-Go-Round (1990) for liveliness, and closes with several simple exercises and games to get children into the act. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-8234-1982-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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