When will Fly and Spider get their own school stories? (Early reader. 5-7)
Cronin and Bliss’ droll humor come to the early-reader set courtesy of Houran and Nez.
Mrs. Mulch is the best teacher Worm has ever had. So, when they have a substitute so she can take the day off for her birthday, Worm just has to think up a present that will be more spectacular than those of his classmates. His best friends, Spider and Fly, try to help, but their ideas just aren’t appropriate for worms. But when they take him kite flying (literally) to cheer him up, they spy an apple from their vantage point. Will it be rotten enough? Will they be able to get it to Worm’s school? Will Worm be able to pull a birthday card out of thin air? Nez’s illustrations in the style of Bliss entertain, his characters sporting accessories and facial expressions that will be quite familiar to readers. Houran and Nez have transferred all the elements that made the Diary series so successful—the slightly gross humor, the three friends and their talents playing off one another, and the similarity to real human plights—to this early reader, continuing the trio’s adventures for kids just striking out on their own.
When will Fly and Spider get their own school stories? (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-208705-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
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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