A moderately challenging addition to the “seek and find” genre, large of format and cheery of tone.
“Welcome to Plant City, where plants grow and ladybugs hide.”
Her mischievous pet ladybug having taken a powder, Daisy, a brown bunny, enlists Basil, a blue lizard and the best detective in town, to track him down—amid teeming hordes of smiling creatures and mazes of vegetation in a museum, a fair, a rock concert (in a cave, naturally), and seven other leafy locales. Filling each oversized spread with bright color and busy activity, Manolessou invites viewers to spot not only the errant insect, but seven other members of the diverse all-animal cast sleeping, crying, carrying various items, or, at Hedge Hospital, suffering specified maladies. At last, Basil comes away from a visit to the silly hat store with Ladybug on his head, so it’s time for some celebratory ice cream. The printed narrative adds dialogue and minor flourishes to the rudimentary storyline, but the pictures, full as they are of lively action and byplay, should prove the main draw.
A moderately challenging addition to the “seek and find” genre, large of format and cheery of tone. (visual key) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78603-029-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
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
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
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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