Grab your funny bone—Shannon (The Shark God, 2001, etc.) rides again! Rather his Duck does, when one day on the farm, he gets a wild idea that he can ride a bike. After the first wobbles, Duck sails past Cow, Sheep, Dog, Cat, Horse, Chicken, Goat, Pig, and Mouse. The oversized animals’ reactions range from “How silly” to “Show-off” to “Wish I could ride!” Then a bunch of kids come riding down the farm road and park their bikes beside the house and go inside. The next double spread shows the animals staring ahead with gleeful expressions, like a light bulb lighting up—and readers will know immediately what comes next. The scene of all the animals gaily pedaling bikes is hilarious. And when they put them back, no one knows that 11 farm animals had ever been on a bike. Brightly colored illustrations display a front row, big-screen point of view with bits of images running off the edges of the spread. The in-your-face perspective of the action punctuates the comedy and the page design is ingenious. Even the end page humorously poses the next challenge for Duck—a tractor. The body language of Duck on the bike looks nothing but plausible. A “quackerjack” of a terrific escapade. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-439-05023-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
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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