Real aspiring actors should be warned that it’s not going to be that easy. Still, a feel-good story any way you slice it.
Most pickles just wait for their turns to be served with burgers and fries. Not Phil.
No, Phil yearns to be an actor. Ignoring the sour naysayers in his jar, he’s already hired an agent and scheduled an audition (for a laundry commercial). But does he have what it takes to beat the teeming competition? Shouldering past both a waiting-room crowd and a moment of weakness (“I’m nothing but a glorified condiment”), he gives it his all—and, despite an abrupt dismissal, learns later that he’s landed the gig! In cartoon illustrations paired to Herzog’s legibly hand-lettered narrative, Canby outfits her warty wannabe thespian with big round spectacles and dresses him, as he acts out his dreams, in a closet full of imaginary costumes. Not only is Phil instantly the talk of the entire grocery store, but he “became an inspiration to pickles everywhere.” Better yet, when jar mate Helen Pickle later declares her determination to become a kickboxer, even the sourest pickles cheer her on.
Real aspiring actors should be warned that it’s not going to be that easy. Still, a feel-good story any way you slice it. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4413-1933-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Peter Pauper Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work.
A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0689845049
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
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