Kids will enjoy the silliness, and there’s lots of potential for the classroom.
Themed alphabet books are like the Little Engine that Could—they just keep on comin’.
This one is based on the author/illustrator’s personal experience in Kenya. A young man named Kay Kay promises the children at a new school in his village that he will paint the plain white walls with animals from A to Z. As he walks along looking for inspiration, he meets groups of animals too busy at playing “jackstones” or reading riddles to help. They are obvious (to readers) choices, though Kay Kay doesn’t realize it. As he continues his jaunt, each threesome of animals joins in the trek behind him, ending in a complete animal alphabet. The animals he encounters are highlighted in green: “ ‘Kay Kay, come dance with us!’ shouted Baboon, Crocodile, and Dragonfly.” Most of these animals are relatively familiar, with the possible exceptions of Nyala, Quagga, Upupa Bird, Vervet and Xerus Squirrel. The loosely energetic, cartoon illustrations are lively with capricious details. The backmatter includes a glossary of typical Swahili words such as “please” and “bathroom,” as well as such comic phrases as “My brother picks his nose” and “No more broccoli, thank you.” There is also an author’s note, photos of the real Kay Kay and the Star of Hope School, and a map, but unfortunately there is no key to the animal names.
Kids will enjoy the silliness, and there’s lots of potential for the classroom. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-58536-905-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some...
With a little help from his audience, a young storyteller gets over a solid case of writer’s block in this engaging debut.
Despite the (sometimes creatively spelled) examples produced by all his classmates and the teacher’s assertion that “Stories are everywhere!” Ralph can’t get past putting his name at the top of his paper. One day, lying under the desk in despair, he remembers finding an inchworm in the park. That’s all he has, though, until his classmates’ questions—“Did it feel squishy?” “Did your mom let you keep it?” “Did you name it?”—open the floodgates for a rousing yarn featuring an interloping toddler, a broad comic turn and a dramatic rescue. Hanlon illustrates the episode with childlike scenes done in transparent colors, featuring friendly-looking children with big smiles and widely spaced button eyes. The narrative text is printed in standard type, but the children’s dialogue is rendered in hand-lettered printing within speech balloons. The episode is enhanced with a page of elementary writing tips and the tantalizing titles of his many subsequent stories (“When I Ate Too Much Spaghetti,” “The Scariest Hamster,” “When the Librarian Yelled Really Loud at Me,” etc.) on the back endpapers.
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some budding young writers off and running. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0761461807
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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