Decked out in handsome new illustrations, this 1962 Newbery Honor–winner (originally illustrated by Beni Montresor) features twin mice who discover that they aren’t as powerless as they thought. Dispatched to bell the resident cat by fierce lead mouse Portman, Bob and Ozzie screw their courage to the sticking place, steal a collar from the pet store, then flee aboard a departing ship to escape feline pursuit. The first creature they encounter upon disembarking is a sleeping cat of monstrous size—a tiger, who, rather than eating them, admires the collar they intrepidly slip onto its tail, shows them their effect on a passing elephant, then sees them back to the ship. This experience gives them the moxie to face Portman down, on their return home. Both Stolz’s rich language and her central theme have a timeless freshness, and Pratt’s impasto scenes of dot-eyed, square-nosed mice scampering through a very large world capture the tale’s danger, comedy, and lightly satiric touches expertly. Bob, Ozzie, and the cat are renamed; the otherwise unaltered text is quite a bit longer than usual for its new format, but today’s readers will be as delighted by it as their grandparents were. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7624-1889-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
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
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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