Alas and alack—no buried treasure here.
The kidnapping of one of Santa’s elves results in mutiny by the pirate crew of a ship called the Knotty List.
After a wild battle, the tiny kidnapped elf and the pirate crew seize the ship and send Cap’n McNasty off on a skiff with only one oar. He finds his way to a new life on an island where he meets a wild-haired woman with “whiskers on her chin” as well as her own eye patch and peg leg. The elf leads the pirate crew to the North Pole, where they join Santa’s workforce, helping to turn out a line of teddy bears with eye patches and hooks on one paw. The pirate captain might be a cousin of Capt. Hook, complete with eye patch, peg leg, and a sharp, hook-shaped prosthesis replacing a missing hand. Though these are standard pirate tropes, their use is problematic in an era of disability awareness. Cap’n McNasty narrates the rhyming story in an exuberant piratical tone with a surfeit of exclamation marks. Broadly humorous cartoon illustrations use a dark, subdued palette with amusing details tucked into the scenes, but the overall effect is garish and crowded. Cap’n McNasty and some of the pirates have tan skin, while all the elves appear to be white. Several of the elves and redheaded pirate Poutin’ Pam are females.
Alas and alack—no buried treasure here. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4556-2133-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pelican
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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