Hattie Hippo is fat. Not surprising, for a hippo, but apparently endlessly amusing. Or that’s what her creators presume. In four short vignettes, Hattie’s size plays the starring role. In “The Ballet,” Hattie twirls and leaps—and misses the two rhinos poised to catch her, landing off-stage (and off page) with, one assumes, an enormous thump. At “The Tea Party,” Hattie greedily gobbles down all the goodies, leaving her guests with none. In “The Swimming Pool,” after squeezing herself into an itsy-bitsy striped bikini, Hattie cannonballs into the blow-up pool and sends all the water splashing out. And in “Hide & Seek,” Hattie hides ineffectually behind various pieces of furniture before falling asleep under the table. Loomis’s jaunty rhymes and Neubecker’s cartoon-style illustrations obviously are intended to amuse. But Hattie is too much of a caricature for kids to connect to, and adults may not be able to get past the very likely unintentional fat-bashing. Disappointing. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-439-54340-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 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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