Readers who like to cuddle up to their monsters will respond to this one.
Junior Monster Scouts to the rescue!
Monster pals Franky Stein, Vampyra, and Wolfy are out practicing howling—well, Wolfy is practicing for his merit badge as the others coach him—when they hear someone crying. It’s Peter the piper, a human child who has lost his kitten, Shadow. After the monsters convince Peter that they are nice, helpful monsters and not scary ones, the four head into the Gloomy Woods and work together to find and rescue Shadow. Meanwhile, the mean, rotten Baron Von Grump and his crow, Edgar, have hatched a plan to clear the nearby village of noisy, happy, gum-chewing villagers and put a stop to their cheese festival. (It involves rats.) Can the Junior Monster Scouts and their new friend foil Baron Von Grump’s dastardly plan and convince all the villagers that the calumny that monsters are bad and scary is just propaganda? With this title, McGee kicks off a new series of monster-positive early chapter books, releasing it simultaneously with Book 2, Crash! Bang! Boo! both amiably illustrated by Long with his signature cartoons in black and white. Repetitive language and short chapters married with a positive can-do attitude make this a good choice for little monsters just jumping the gap from easy readers to chapters. Excerpts from the Junior Monster Scout manual and an extensive author’s acknowledgments appear at the close. Characters (other than monsters) appear white.
Readers who like to cuddle up to their monsters will respond to this one. (Fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3677-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
A nice and timely depiction of an immigrant child experience.
Speaking up is hard when you’re shy, and it can be even harder if you’ve got two languages in your head.
Third-grader Estrella “Stella” Díaz, is a shy, Mexican-American girl who draws pictures and loves fish, and she lives in Chicago with her mother and older brother, Nick. Jenny, Stella’s best friend, isn’t in her class this year, and Stella feels lonely—especially when she sees that Vietnamese-American Jenny is making new friends. When a new student, Stanley Mason, arrives in her class, Stella introduces herself in Spanish to the white former Texan without realizing it and becomes embarrassed. Surely Stanley won’t want to befriend her after that—but he seems to anyway. Stella often confuses the pronunciation between English and Spanish sounds and takes speech classes. As an immigrant with a green card—a “legal alien,” according to her teacher—Stella feels that she doesn’t fully belong to either American culture or Mexican culture, and this is nicely reflected in her not being fully comfortable in either language, an experience familiar to many immigrant and first-generation children. This early-middle-grade book features italicized Spanish words and phrases with direct translations right after. There is a small subplot about bullying from Stella’s classmate, and readers will cheer as they see how, with the help of her friends and family, Stella overcomes her shyness and gives a presentation on Jacques Cousteau. Dominguez’s friendly black-and-white drawings grace most pages.
A nice and timely depiction of an immigrant child experience. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62672-858-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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