Visual learners and younger children alike will pore delightedly over these nearly wordless sequences.
Four whimsical cartoon outings feature an overlapping cast of small anthropomorphic animals artfully placed to lead eyes up, down, around and past page turns to mishaps and surprises.
Doug (a duck) and Mouse, plainly a pair of adrenalin junkies, open with a looping airplane flight, go on to pose in 24 adventuresome settings laid out on a single spread, then take a boat ride that ends up under water. The titular cat joins the intrepid travelers for an underground pizza party, steps out himself to try on 32 different occupational outfits—again on a single spread—and goes on to a series of amusing experiments in a chemistry lab and elsewhere. In the third episode, rabbit-eared Connie spends a day in a Rube Goldberg–ian mechanical house, attends a birthday party and enjoys a spaghetti dinner at a trattoria—before an extra-long strand leads to an extremely long slurp. In the final chapter, elderly Mr. and Mrs. Hamhock wait at the bus stop through night and day and through seasons, a vignette clearly inspired by Waiting for Godot. Both the sight gags and the characters’ comical responses are easy to track in Martz’s flat, minimally detailed, graphic-style art.
Visual learners and younger children alike will pore delightedly over these nearly wordless sequences. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-927668-10-8
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Koyama Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A joyful if simplistic celebration of Chinese New Year culture.
A kid tries to catch a good-luck dragon hiding around town as the family prepares for Chinese New Year following the formula established in How To Catch an Elf (2016) and other series installments.
After hearing Mom wish for a dragon to bring health and fortune for the new year, a boy (presumably Chinese) and several friends (of varying racial presentations) discover a dragon lurking about town. Among the Chinese-style architecture of the town buildings, they employ various fantastical lures related to Chinese culture to catch it, including a web of noodles and sticky rice, a giant red lantern, gold coins, and a dragon dance. The simple and often awkward rhyming quatrains leave no room for deeper insights into Chinese culture, but each stanza does include one or two highlighted words whose Chinese translation can then be found within the illustration. The entire text is translated into Simplified Chinese with Pinyin in the backmatter for cross-referencing. Elkerton’s digitally painted, colorful cartoon illustrations depict a diverse cast of modern-looking children against a backdrop of a traditional Chinese village. Ultimately, despite the protagonist’s failure to catch the dragon, it is being within the embrace of a loving family (depicted as a mother and a grandmother) that is the luckiest of all.
A joyful if simplistic celebration of Chinese New Year culture. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9369-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sure to assuage the fears of all astronauts bound for similar missions.
A genius way to ease kids into the new adventure that is kindergarten.
In an imaginative ruse that’s maintained through the whole book, a young astronaut prepares for his mission to Planet Kindergarten. On liftoff day (a space shuttle–themed calendar counts down the days; a stopwatch, the minutes), the small family boards their rocket ship (depicted in the illustrations as the family car), and “the boosters fire.” They orbit base camp while looking for a docking place. “I am assigned to my commander, capsule, and crewmates.” Though he’s afraid, he stands tall and is brave (not just once, either—the escape hatch beckons, but NASA’s saying gets him through: “FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION”). Parents will certainly chuckle along with this one, but kindergarten teachers’ stomach muscles will ache: “[G]ravity works differently here. We have to try hard to stay in our seats. And our hands go up a lot.” Prigmore’s digital illustrations are the perfect complement to the tongue-in-cheek text. Bold colors, sharp lines and a retro-space style play up the theme. The intrepid explorer’s crewmates are a motley assortment of “aliens”—among them are a kid in a hoodie with the laces pulled so tight that only a nose and mouth are visible; a plump kid with a bluish cast to his skin; and a pinkish girl with a toothpick-thin neck and huge bug eyes.
Sure to assuage the fears of all astronauts bound for similar missions. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1893-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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