This could be worse…but it could be better.
Two shipwrecked sailors hold different viewpoints about their situation.
Out on the open ocean, Albertini (brown-skinned, with dark hair, wearing a knitted cap and blue sailor stripes) and George (white-skinned, with bright orange hair and a blue sweater) float on a fragment of their ill-fated ship. The placid, empty ocean shows no sign of other sailors nor other parts of the ship. It begins to rain, but just on them: a narrow, personalized storm. Albertini shouts, “This is so unfair!”—but: “It could be worse,” counters chin-up George. A chain of cartoonishly bad (and lackadaisically disparate) events unfolds: Flying fish drop diarrhea on them; mermaids wearing onesies sing a song that gets stuck in their heads; a sea anemone pulls them to the ocean’s floor; a whale swallows them down into its belly, where they find Rodin’s The Thinker, Pinocchio, and telephones from various bygone eras among other esoterica. Each event distresses poor Albertini while chipper George repeatedly murmurs that things could be worse. The refrain begs for an ending with a strong (and pattern-relevant) punch, swerve, or affirmation, but none comes. Instead, several implausible strokes of luck—overly casual luck that the text never acknowledges—reunite Albertini and George with their multiracial crew and the inexplicably restored (though not whole) components of the missing ship. Tsarfati’s wiry illustrations lean on concept more than aesthetic or visual engagement.
This could be worse…but it could be better. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1791-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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