Beccia’s debut, a fanciful, alphabetical survey of early circus performers, showcases her facility in graphic design. Setting the stage, early-20th-century sepia streetscapes feature a colorful circus bill, the parade of performers to come and a family entering the tent. The ensuing digitally composed mixed-media illustrations, bordered in black, reflect the typography, color palette and iconography of vintage circus posters, presenting the hirsute Lady Esau, tattooed Captain Costentenus and more. Each poster combines the hyperbolic allure of early adverts and an alphabet ditty with a few well-chosen historical facts in crisp white type at the bottom of each page. The weakness here is the text. The rhymed verses do not always scan, and a few slangy words don’t mesh: “R is for round / A zaftig beauty / Ruth’s got girth / & a buxom booty.” The spread featuring conjoined sisters skirts propriety, even given the historical context: “O is for odd / It’s strange but true / The Hilton Twins / Are stuck like glue.” Visually accomplished but textually flawed. (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: April 9, 2007
ISBN: 0-618-60567-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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