Out fishing on the Bayou Clapateaux, young Hugh Thomas listens with delight when Papa-Daddy and Elder Abbajonto happen by to tell him a tall tale concerning a 500-pound turkey, a Spanish conquistador's lantern that's still burning, and ``the longest, meanest cottonmouth I ever did see.'' After they leave, Hugh Thomas catches just three small fish—and then imagines an even taller tale to tell the men: he catches a million fish, but the crocodiles demand half, and he's able to keep only half of the remainder by winning a jumprope contest with some piratical raccoons on his way home. Most of the rest disappear while he's talking to his friend Miss Challie Pearl: Did her cat get them? Still, he has those first three fish, just enough for supper. Though it doesn't have quite the enchantment of the author's Flossie and the Fox (1986), this lively, well-cadenced tale makes a good African-American counterpart to Seuss's classic And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. In her picture book debut, Schutzer provides freely rendered oil paintings with bold strokes of vibrant color that are especially effective at a distance—fine for groups. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 10, 1992
ISBN: 0-679-80692-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
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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