Ironically enough, this particular Rumor doesn’t seem likely to inspire much repetition.
A group of animal friends misinterprets a small piece of information, resulting in outsized fears and creating a one-joke tale that rolls quickly along to a happy ending.
The confusion begins when a quizzical-looking rabbit named Rupert spots an item about a wolf in the area while reading the paper. He hurries to warn his friends. As the story spreads and grows, each animal adds its own self-inspired spin. Cleo, the cat, describes the wolf’s “sharp claws,” while Antoine, the alligator, focuses on its big teeth and biting ability. Young listeners are sure to get the joke when they realize that Antoine is sharing his fears with his friend Wallace, who just happens to be a wolf. Oddly enough, Wallace doesn’t point out the foolishness of their fears. Instead he panics too and urges all of his friends inside for a bowl of mushroom soup, which they enjoy in the safety of his “double-locked” house. Most of Felix’s anthropomorphized animals wear items of clothing, and all are engaged in typical human activities. These details definitely add appeal (Antoine in the bathtub in an old-fashioned striped bathing costume is particularly amusing, while Rupert’s blue jacket is decidedly reminiscent of another storybook rabbit’s), but they aren’t enough to entirely outweigh the predictable plot and didactic overtones.
Ironically enough, this particular Rumor doesn’t seem likely to inspire much repetition. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56846-219-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Creative Editions/Creative Company
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated...
The master of the manic patterned tale offers a newly buffed version of his first published book, with appropriately gloppy new illustrations.
Like the previous four iterations (orig. 1979; revised 2004, 2006, 2009), the plot remains intact through minor changes in wording: Each time young Jule Ann ventures outside in clean clothes, a nefarious mud puddle leaps out of a tree or off the roof to get her “completely all over muddy” and necessitate a vigorous parental scrubbing. Petricic gives the amorphous mud monster a particularly tarry look and texture in his scribbly, high-energy cartoon scenes. It's a formidable opponent, but the two bars of smelly soap that the resourceful child at last chucks at her attacker splatter it over the page and send it sputtering into permanent retreat.
Score one for cleanliness. Like (almost) all Munsch, funny as it stands but even better read aloud, with lots of exaggerated sound effects. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-427-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There are many parallel legends – the seal women, for example, with their strange sad longings – but none is more direct than this American Indian story of a girl who is carried away in a horses’ stampede…to ride thenceforth by the side of a beautiful stallion who leads the wild horses. The girl had always loved horses, and seemed to understand them “in a special way”; a year after her disappearance her people find her riding beside the stallion, calf in tow, and take her home despite his strong resistance. But she is unhappy and returns to the stallion; after that, a beautiful mare is seen riding always beside him. Goble tells the story soberly, allowing it to settle, to find its own level. The illustrations are in the familiar striking Goble style, but softened out here and there with masses of flowers and foliage – suitable perhaps for the switch in subject matter from war to love, but we miss the spanking clean design of Custer’s Last Battle and The Fetterman Fight. 6-7
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1978
ISBN: 0689845049
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
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