Edsel, a red-headed, blue-eyed boy, orders a life-sized model car in the mail. His room is filled with toy cars, auto...
Automotively named Edsel McFarlan loves model cars and has a thrilling high-octane adventure when the toy of his dreams arrives in this visually zippy app that ultimately fails to kick into high gear on the interactive lane.
Edsel, a red-headed, blue-eyed boy, orders a life-sized model car in the mail. His room is filled with toy cars, auto posters, hubcaps and license plates. In the slickly illustrated pages of the app, based on a 2010 book, Edsel's delighted grins and body language lovingly capture the laser-focused obsession of a young boy in love with a hobby. When Edsel finishes his new model and takes it for a spin through town, the story amusingly follows Edsel through (seemingly harmless) trips through back yards, across an intersection and into a construction site. The intentionally simple and direct text ("The steering wheel turned the front tires") are a counterweight to the packed illustrations, which feature many background details, characters and life-like clutter. If only the app was as attention-oriented. The too-straightforward adaptation features narration and displays the names of objects on screen aloud, but that's about the extent of its interactivity. Such a motion-filled story could have benefited from a little animation or at least the inclusion of sound effects. (Pages that feature sound effects like "SNAP" or "KAR-EEK" spelled out in text cry out for aural accompaniment.)Pub Date: June 8, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Auryn
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
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Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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