“The Egg was young. / It didn’t listen. / If only it had waited.” This modern-day version of Humpty Dumpty (wall, fall, irreparable damage), first published in England in 2002, may prove as controversial as the comparatively benign Arlene Sardine (1998), by Chris Raschka, whose fishy heroine dies mid-book. Here, an egg wants desperately to fly and just can’t wait for all that pecking-out-of-the-shell-and-flapping-its-wings business. Despite many warnings (and being ignorant of Bernoulli’s principle, illustrated within), it climbs to the top of a 583-step tower and jumps. Gravity ensues. When the broken shell can’t be repaired with tomato soup, Band-Aids or nails, the egg—now curiously intact and smiling like the Mona Lisa—is plated sunny-side up with bacon for an unseen diner’s breakfast. Some children will laugh, two or three will never eat an egg again and, as usual, none will pay any attention when told “Wait until you’re older.” Grey’s appealing, comical artwork—with soft watercolors, toasty warm palette and refreshingly varied perspectives—employs bits of graph paper, photographs and other textures to wonderful, shattering effect. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: July 14, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-84260-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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