A sweet, playful tale about stealing shoes and finding family.
A South Asian girl grapples with big changes at a family wedding.
Shilpa’s older sister, Maya, is getting married, and Shilpa is nervous. What if she loses Maya to her new family? Maya’s future husband’s younger brother, Rishi, makes her especially uneasy. For one thing, he won’t stop calling Shilpa “Bean.” For another, Maya calls Rishi “sweet”—will Maya ever call Shilpa that again? Shilpa tries to get past these troubles and focus on her main responsibility: upholding the tradition of Joota Chupai, or stealing the groom’s shoes and returning them only when he offers a prize. Shilpa and her cousin plot to steal the shoes, but Rishi is fast and tries to make off with them. In an unexpected twist, Rishi falls and hurts his knee, and Shilpa stops to help him. She soon realizes that Rishi isn’t her rival. Indeed, he turns out to be her newest partner in crime at the wedding—and maybe even her newest brother. Upbeat text and vibrant illustrations combine for a raucous story full of heart, movement, and joy. Although Shilpa’s change in attitude toward Rishi feels abrupt, her fears about losing her sibling and integrating into a new family are both relatable and beautifully explored. The illustrations are particularly inviting, featuring bold colors, intense emotional expression, and laugh-out-loud silliness.
A sweet, playful tale about stealing shoes and finding family. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780807571866
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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