Leaving his oblivious father deep in “(boring dad talk)” with a passerby, little Luke scuttles off in pursuit of a flock of pigeons. The merry chase takes him out of the park, across streets, over the Brooklyn Bridge, up an apartment building’s fire escape and, at last, onto the roof of a water tower where he decides to sack out. Relating the escapade in sequential panels featuring dialogue balloons, blurgits and other cartooning conventions (plus a cameo by Popeye’s Olive Oyl), Bliss sends his brown-skinned ex-toddler speeding through and over scenes of urban chaos, until he is delivered at last by firefighters into the arms of his relieved parents. The next-day final scene is much like the first—except that the errant lad is held in check by a leash. Luke’s ruckus seems low-key next to the general havoc wreaked in The Cat in the Hat, or more recently Jennifer Armstrong’s Once Upon A Banana, illustrated by David Small (2006), but that will make it easier for fledgling readers and prereaders to follow his trail. Only figuratively, one hopes. (Graphic early reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-935179-00-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: RAW Junior/TOON Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip. The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface. Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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