Yee-haw! Pa never does show up, but there are plainly more misadventures in store before trail’s end.
Two children get into one pickle after another as they search the Old West for their elusive dad.
There’s never a dull moment as Opie (Calliope, but woe betide anyone who calls her that) and pesky little brother Ned chase rumors of their pa’s whereabouts—being as he’s universally feared as “the criminal king of the west,” there are plenty of rumors—while a posse of disasters rides hot at their heels. In a series of set-piece chapters, Hirsch chucks the young searchers into saloon brawls, gunfights, and encounters with a massive mountain man clad in a bearskin onesie and a motherly if larcenous woman of low virtue, among other dust-ups. Finally Opie and Ned brave a booby-trapped underground lair to confront one of Pa’s “representatives,” a lowdown snake who killed their mother. Beneath a prized coonskin cap that, according to Ned, smells “like ten butts,” Opie’s orange hair glows as brightly as her feisty spirit in the neatly squared-off cartoon panels. Horses and other livestock (plus the odd jackalope) show as much personality as any of the two-legged characters. Amid the large typecast array of white gamblers, cowpokes, Pinkerton agents, settlers, and outlaws, the author floats an occasional darker-skinned or Native American figure.
Yee-haw! Pa never does show up, but there are plainly more misadventures in store before trail’s end. (Graphic Western. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62672-279-8
Page Count: 226
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
The dream phantasms of a high-spirited narrator intersect, even crowd, reality, but the stream-of-consciousness text makes for a rambling, radically personal tale. Playful images of a stuffed lion, trampoline, purple shoes, and a cat named Pine-Cone take hold in a young girl’s imagination, despite her “old” mother who makes her go to bed when she’d rather “stay up early” and a big sister with a cranky disposition. At home, she likes counting flea bites and pretending to be a worm, but is afraid of the dark and going to Grade One. The second half of the book takes off in a separate first-day-of school direction. Wild dreams precede the big day, which includes bullies on the playground and instant friend Chelsea. The childlike articulations of the text are endearing, but not quite of universal interest, and don’t add up to a compelling story; children may more readily warm to Gay’s illustrations, which include a dreamlike flying cat, a menacing hot dog, and an uproarious stuffed toy looming over everyday domestic scenes. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1999
ISBN: 1-55143-107-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
Opening episodes of a comic-book series created by an American teacher in Japan take a leap into chapter-book format, with only partial success. Resembling—in occasional illustrations—a button-eyed, juvenile Olive Oyl, Akiko, 10, is persuaded by a pair of aliens named Bip and Bop to climb out her high-rise bedroom’s window for a trip to M&M-shaped Planet Smoo, where Prince Fropstoppit has been kidnapped by widely feared villainness Alia Rellaport. Along with an assortment of contentious sidekicks, including brainy Mr. Beeba, Akiko battles Sky Pirates and video-game-style monsters in prolonged scenes of cartoony violence, displaying resilience, courage, and leadership ability, but not getting very far in her rescue attempt; in fact, the story cuts off so abruptly, with so little of the quest completed, and at a lull in the action to boot, that readers expecting a self-contained (forget complete) story are likely to feel cheated. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32724-2
Page Count: 162
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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