Younger snifflers will / sympathize, and delight in / this read-aloud cinch!
Kaiju has sniffles. / Who will help the poor monster? / Maybe human friends!
Even huge blue monsters aren’t immune to colds, it seems. Waking up “feeling yucky and too hot” one morning and emitting a thunderous sneeze, Kaiju stomps off toward the nearest city in search of comfort, stepping carefully around the little cars and buildings while trying to ignore all the hovering helicopters. Fortunately, a Kaiju-speaking lad and his likewise olive-skinned scientist dad, who works at Kaiju Central, quickly diagnose the problem and order an army of robots to produce an outsize tissue, blanket, and bowl of soup—just the tickets to relieve the grateful giant’s symptoms and send him back to his volcanic cave to snuggle down. McClements frames the entire narrative, including sneezes and wailing sirens, in conventional 5-7-5 haiku, which, rather than sounding forced or monotonous, actually offers lively, comical accompaniment to the cartoon illustrations by lending a rhythmic lilt to the telling. “Kaiju is back home. / Many adventures today— / now it’s time to rest.” Fleeing humans, when large enough to tell, look racially diverse.
Younger snifflers will / sympathize, and delight in / this read-aloud cinch! (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781662640360
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Hippo Park/Astra Books for Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The premise is worn gossamer thin, and the joke stopped being funny, if it ever was, long ago.
A fairy tending their garden manages to survive a gaggle of young intruders.
In halting cadences typical of the long-running—and increasingly less amusing—How To Catch… series, the startled mite—never seen face-on in Elkerton’s candy-colored pictures and indeterminate of gender—wonders about the racially diverse interlopers: “Do they know that I can grant wishes? / Or that a new fairy is born when they giggle?” The visual action rather belies the sweetness of the verses, the palette, the bright flowers, and the multicolored resident zebras and unicorns, as after repeated, elaborately designed efforts to trap or even shoot (with a peashooter) the fairy come to naught, the laughing children are escorted out of the garden beneath a rising moon. The encounter ends on a (perhaps unconsciously) ominous note. “Hope they find their way back sometime,” the butterfly-winged narrator concludes. “And just maybe next time they’ll stay!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
The premise is worn gossamer thin, and the joke stopped being funny, if it ever was, long ago. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781728263205
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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