This chapter-book mystery presents readers with more style than substance as it tells the tale of Sensible Hare, Hare Detective. Sensible doesn’t always act sensibly and is, in fact, rendered quite silly by the appearance of lovely Mazy Rabbit, who wants him to find a missing case of carrots. With the able assistance of Ottoman, the otter who lives in a tiny cupboard off Sensible’s office, he pursues clues and case into and out of a veritable den of thieves to a not-very-surprising conclusion. There’s so much right about this slim book: Sensible struggles to match his tough-hare persona, who “has tidy ears and … feet as fast as kung fu”; Mazy cries “parsley tears”; Sensible’s landlord, Mr. Ratchet, is “so big, he carrie[s] three smaller Mr. Ratchets in his overalls pocket”—literally. But as daffy detail heaps on daffy detail—Ottoman lives with a thimble he has named Thimble; Sensible’s office, a former haberdashery, has ghost hats floating about—the thin plot goes as missing as the case of carrots, and readers will wonder exactly what just happened. (Mystery. 7-9)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25038-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look...
Winning actually isn’t everything, as jazz-happy Rooster learns when he goes up against the legendary likes of Mules Davis and Ella Finchgerald at the barnyard talent show.
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look good—particularly after his “ ‘Hen from Ipanema’ [makes] / the barnyard chickies swoon.”—but in the end the competition is just too stiff. No matter: A compliment from cool Mules and the conviction that he still has the world’s best band soon puts the strut back in his stride. Alexander’s versifying isn’t always in tune (“So, he went to see his cousin, / a pianist of great fame…”), and despite his moniker Rooster plays an electric bass in Bower’s canted country scenes. Children are unlikely to get most of the jokes liberally sprinkled through the text, of course, so the adults sharing it with them should be ready to consult the backmatter, which consists of closing notes on jazz’s instruments, history and best-known musicians.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58536-688-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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