Not captivating but fun for some.
A simple, rhyming text describes one day in the life of bugs with enormous eyes and red capes as they save many other insects from harm.
Orange front endpapers and green rear endpapers sport yellow, comical outlines of various bugs with such facts as “ANTS carry many times their own weight!” (This ant raises a dumbbell.) Fine print on the copyright page explains that “true bugs” have a proboscis and also gives technical information about the colorful artwork. The art rarely shows proboscises, but then again, it shows such things as roaches playing baseball. The first double-page spread reveals three heroic bugs in capes and begins a litany that repeats in between other verses throughout: “Antennae up, eyes down. / Buzzing all around the town. / Super Bugs, Super Bugs, / mighty, mighty Super Bugs!” The rescues include saving a stinkbug from falling, pulling ants and termites from a fire, and pushing a grasshopper away from a “whopper bopper”—a large tomato. In addition to the repeated chorus, there are other catchy phrases, such as, “Beetles cheer, never fear.” After a long day of heroics, colors fade to twilight tones and fireflies blink goodnight—too quick a conversion after many pages of vibrant color and intense activity. Moreover, the comical cuteness both does away with two of the insects’ limbs and makes it hard to distinguish stinkbug from cricket from roach, leading to critter fatigue.
Not captivating but fun for some. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-68756-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end.
Something is preventing Owl from falling asleep.
Owl leans back against his white pillow and headboard. “Squeek!” says something underneath the bed. Owl’s never heard that sound before, so he fastens his pink bathrobe and answers the front door. Nobody. It must be the wind; back to bed. Bidding himself goodnight, he climbs into bed—and hears the noise again. Time after time, he pops out of bed seeking the squeaker. Is it in the cupboard? He empties the shelves. Under the floor? He pulls up his floorboards. As Owl’s actions ratchet up—he destroys the roof and smashes the walls, all in search of the squeak—so does his anxiety. Not until he hunkers down in bed under the night sky (his bed is now outdoors, because the house’s roof and walls are gone), frantically clutching his pillow, does he see what readers have seen all along: a small, gray mouse. In simple illustrations with black outlines, textured coloring, and foreshortened perspective, Pizzoli plays mischievously with mouse placement. Sometimes the mouse is behind Owl or just out of his sightline; other times, the mouse is on a solid, orange-colored page across the spread from Owl, which removes him from Owl’s scene in a rather postmodern manner. Is the mouse toying with Owl? Who knows?
A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1275-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back.
Little Nutbrown Hare ventures out into the wide world and comes back with a new companion in this sequel to Guess How Much I Love You (1994).
Big Nutbrown Hare is too busy, so after asking permission, Little Nutbrown Hare scampers off over the rolling meadow to play by himself. After discovering that neither his shadow nor his reflection make satisfactory playmates (“You’re only another me!”), Little Nutbrown comes to Cloudy Mountain…and meets “Someone real!” It’s a white bunny who introduces herself as Tipps. But a wonderful round of digging and building and chasing about reaches an unexpected end with a game of hide-and-seek, because both hares hide! After waiting a long time to be found, Little Nutbrown Hare hops on home in disappointment, wondering whether he’ll ever see Tipps again. As it turns out, it doesn’t take long to find out, since she has followed him. “Now, where on earth did she come from?” wonders Big Nutbrown. “Her name is Tipps,” Little Nutbrown proudly replies, “and she’s my friend.” Jeram’s spacious, pale-toned, naturalistic outdoor scenes create a properly idyllic setting for this cozy development in a tender child-caregiver relationship—which hasn’t lost a bit of its appealing intimacy in the more than 25 years since its first appearance. As in the first, Big Nutbrown Hare is ungendered, facilitating pleasingly flexible readings.
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1747-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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