Handsome, comical pictures reminiscent of David Wiesner’s Tuesday (1991) illustrate a briefly told tale of a fishy foray onto dry land. Before departing from a day at the beach, young Peter tosses out a bottle containing an invitation to the fish to come visit. The next morning, there’s a grouper in the tub, a blue whale soaring over the rooftops and a host of other finny tourists—identified on the endpapers—floating into town. Gall creates strong-lined, digitally colored scenes viewed from angles high and low, featuring large, distinct figures that sometimes edge beyond the frames. He also tucks seahorses into a rodeo scene, a school of fish drifting into a classroom, a sawfish and a pair of hammerhead sharks brushing aside a carpenter and other visual jokes. Closing with a wordless view of Peter and his family driving into the drink to take up a reciprocal invitation from the fish, this tongue-in-cheek outing will engage readers with a taste for the surreal. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-316-05847-5
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
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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