This father/son team has concocted a delicious cat-and-mouse tale in which small outsmarts large. Every day, Mr. Howard Maxwell, a proper and pompous cat, orders baked mouse at the Paw and Claw Restaurant until the day of his promotion to Vice Manager of Efficiency Control, when he chooses a raw mouse for his entrée. When the dish arrives, the white mouse, reclining on rye toast, engages Mr. Maxwell in conversation (despite his mother’s admonitions not to fraternize with his food), employing one ruse after another to delay his demise: sprinkling salt, ordering a glass of wine, and requesting a prayer. The mouse deviously creates a catastrophe that enables him to escape and free all the other mice. The computer-generated art is stylishly elegant, dramatically colored in dark hues of slate and black, and handsomely designed with the text printed in white on black sidebars. Effective telescopic perspectives zoom closer as the mouse gets nearer to being eaten. Visually stunning, the period setting (1930s England?), captivating illustrations, and tongue-in-cheek dialogue create a delectable tail, er, tale of one-upmouseship to be savored. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-55337-486-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004
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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