This lesson in cooperation goes down easy.
Will competition or cooperation win out at the Great Pumpkin Contest?
Two very different neighbor cats are each determined to win Cat County’s Great Pumpkin Contest. Orange cat Mimi prefers to be indoors and loves to read, although sometimes she wishes for a friend. Gray-and-white Clara prefers the outdoors and likes to garden and to take tea with her friends. The two have different approaches to growing their pumpkins, too. Mimi researches, her efforts leading to the picture-perfect garden, growing a gigantic pumpkin for the contest. Clara takes a looser approach. Her small, perfect pumpkins are scattered in her yard. A high, brick wall separates the two yards, and the two hardly ever interact. In the end, Mimi pays the price for going it alone: Her giant pumpkin falls out of the wheelbarrow and covers everyone in “pumpkin guts.” She runs home, mortified. Clara extends the hand of friendship (and one of her pumpkins), and the two make a plan to work together next year. And the contest? Both turn out to be winners. Rozelaar ends the tale with a page showing a simplified life cycle of a pumpkin. Her friendly illustrations are brightly colored and nicely textured, depicting sweater-clad cats with large, round heads and stubby limbs. The anthropomorphic cats’ expressive faces evince a wide range of emotions, including amazement, suspicion, and anger. Don’t miss the book titles in Mimi’s house or her clever fridge magnets.
This lesson in cooperation goes down easy. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-274137-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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