Mary had a little lamb, you say? Not quite: a little ham, of both the porcine and thespian variety. Stanley Snoutowski, last in his litter, hams it up at Mary’s school (where it was against the rule) and then sets his sights on Broadway. Success eludes him at first, but encouraging notes from Mary keep him going until the day the famous producers Hoggers and Hammerswine step into his cab for a ride to 42nd St.—and the rest is theatre history. Palatini keeps the puns and jokes coming thick and fast, even as she keeps narrative tongue firmly in cheek: “Stanley wondered if he could really cut the mustard in one of Sheepspeare’s classics.” Francis’s cheerfully goofy illustrations extend the jokes, depicting a cattle call peopled with farm animals in cow suits, udders dangling, psyching themselves for the audition. It is the evident good humor of both text and illustrations that will get young readers through a story that depends on a trope largely unfamiliar to both of them—that, and Stanley’s endearing, dogged determination to make it pig. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7868-0566-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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