A mixed bag of a book.
A book written for new readers seems more like fare for the toddler set.
The unnamed protagonist is a boy who resists his stern mother’s titular directive that he go to bed. Pictures depict her exasperation as she drags him down the hallway and then as she tries to get him out from under his bed. In a very abrupt mood shift on the facing page, she is then pictured sitting and smiling while reading aloud from a chair beside his bed. Playful colored pencil–and-graphite illustrations are anything but sleepy, and their busyness may prove overwhelming for emergent readers attempting to decode text. Furthermore, while the words themselves are simple enough to inspire confidence and independence, the bedtime-angst theme seems better suited to a younger audience. This concern is only somewhat mitigated when the art takes a fantastic turn, sending the boy and his teddy bear flying off on an adventure, as this part of the story is rather disjointed. They sail in a bed that has become like a boat and then encounter alien children who are also resisting bedtime. Then, the boy and teddy bear recognize the moon children’s bed as their own, and they seize it and take it back home. Their appetite for fun satiated, they then decide to go to sleep, too.
A mixed bag of a book. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2938-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
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
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
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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