Jamie sees Angus in a shop window and decides that they belong together. For Angus’s “silky coat looked smooth as bath water and white as snow.” His mother buys Angus and puts him away until Christmas. While waiting for the big day, Jamie prepares a sheep farm for Angus from fabric scraps, Popsicle sticks, and other found materials. From Christmas on, they are inseparable friends, through thick and thin—and washing machine disasters. What an idyllic family. Jamie’s parents are patient and understanding, his teenaged Uncle Edward seems to enjoy his company, and everyone accepts the importance of Angus in Jamie’s life. Jamie is a thoroughly delightful child, whose mischief is mild and whose imagination is lively. Each story begins with a title, illustration, and intriguing opening sentences. Dale’s (Night Night, Cuddly Bear, not reviewed, etc.) pen-and-ink drawings are just right as they highlight the action and the abounding love surrounding the pair. These stories would be ideal to read aloud to young children. Fine (Up on Cloud Nine, p. 732, etc.) is a well-known British author (the current Children’s Laureate) and this work, British in tone and syntax, is a style that should become more familiar to American readers. There is gentleness here in language and emotion that, sadly, is rare in modern American works. A jolly experience. (Fiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7636-1862-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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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