A pleasant book featuring playful storytelling and gentle lessons in character-building.
In this debut children’s novel, three mouse sisters find fun and adventure with their fellow creatures in a small Georgia town.
This story features numerous animals and two benign humans in a little town called Evergreen. The sympathetic humans are Josiah Hillendale, a white man who owns a nearby sawmill and lumber company; and his right-hand man who runs the sawmill, Joe Phillips, who’s black. Most of the action, however, centers on the Hopkinses, a mouse family residing in a cozy den on the outskirts of the sawmill. There, three sisters grow up: responsible Pouxie, timid Mouxie, and bouncy Chrissie, the youngest, who “can sniff out happiness the way most creatures can sniff out supper.” The siblings have a festive game day with their parents, help deter greedy ants from ruining Mama’s shopping trip, visit their squirrel friends’ treehouse, and “go to school”—that is, feast on leftovers from human kids’ lunches. Lessons of kindness, teamwork, generosity, and confidence-building are an organic part of the story; anxious Mouxie, for instance, learns that planning ahead can alleviate worry; the sisters and the protective Crow brothers befriend a neglected mule; and a fat sawmill cat learns something about hubris when he’s hurt while attempting to ambush Mama Hopkins. (Joe helps heal the cat’s injuries and battered pride.) The book’s quirky, conversational style offers read-aloud appeal for young children and tongue-in-cheek humor that older elementary school readers (and adults) will appreciate; Papa Hopkins, for example, indulges in a “toot” of hidden berry juice; voracious reader Joe likes J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, and “lots of things in between,” including books like Saw Tooth Sharpening. Noreikas’ graphite-and-ink–style illustrations of animals, humans, and maps are a delight, rendered with skill and comic wit. The book concludes with plot points that the next volume of the planned trilogy will likely resolve.
A pleasant book featuring playful storytelling and gentle lessons in character-building.Pub Date: Dec. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4808-4784-2
Page Count: 142
Publisher: ArchwayPublishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look...
Winning actually isn’t everything, as jazz-happy Rooster learns when he goes up against the legendary likes of Mules Davis and Ella Finchgerald at the barnyard talent show.
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look good—particularly after his “ ‘Hen from Ipanema’ [makes] / the barnyard chickies swoon.”—but in the end the competition is just too stiff. No matter: A compliment from cool Mules and the conviction that he still has the world’s best band soon puts the strut back in his stride. Alexander’s versifying isn’t always in tune (“So, he went to see his cousin, / a pianist of great fame…”), and despite his moniker Rooster plays an electric bass in Bower’s canted country scenes. Children are unlikely to get most of the jokes liberally sprinkled through the text, of course, so the adults sharing it with them should be ready to consult the backmatter, which consists of closing notes on jazz’s instruments, history and best-known musicians.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58536-688-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure.
It’s not truffles but doubloons that tickle this porcine wayfarer’s fancy.
Funke and Meyer make another foray into chapter-book fare after Emma and the Blue Genie (2014). Here, mariner Stout Sam and deckhand Pip eke out a comfortable existence on Butterfly Island ferrying cargo to and fro. Life is good, but it takes an unexpected turn when a barrel washes ashore containing a pig with a skull-and-crossbones pendant around her neck. It soon becomes clear that this little piggy, dubbed Julie, has the ability to sniff out treasure—lots of it—in the sea. The duo is pleased with her skills, but pride goeth before the hog. Stout Sam hands out some baubles to the local children, and his largess attracts the unwanted attention of Barracuda Bill and his nasty minions. Now they’ve pignapped Julie, and it’s up to the intrepid sailors to save the porker and their own bacon. The succinct word count meets the needs of kids looking for early adventure fare. The tale is slight, bouncy, and amusing, though Julie is never the piratical buccaneer the book’s cover seems to suggest. Meanwhile, Meyer’s cheery watercolors are as comfortable diagramming the different parts of a pirate vessel as they are rendering the dread pirate captain himself.
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure. (Adventure. 7-9)Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37544-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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