Look out, Pecos Bill: here comes Cowpoke Pete, the newest hero of the Wild West. Told in a style as rollicking and rowdy as the opening sequence to Monday Night Football, this entry into the tall-tale tradition will leave readers breathless and happily exhausted. Schnetzler (Ten Little Dinosaurs, not reviewed) leaves no stone in the desert unturned in fulfilling her no-less-high ambition of explaining how the Painted Desert, Mexican Hat, and Monument Valley came to exist. Widdermaker is the biggest, orneriest bull still undefeated and Cowpoke Pete just doesn’t accept that any varmint can’t be beaten. So he lassos the “meanest, low-downest bull” and he and his trusty horse, Desert Rose, go for a ride neither will ever forget, leaving a transformed landscape in their wake. Just in case this raucous read aloud doesn’t get you, newcomer Sealock’s illustrations will. Though the art’s not to everyone’s taste, the high drama of the colors, elongated and distorted figures, and splashy paint convey the gigantic energy and high adventure that carries the narrative to its crescendo. Try to stay on if you can. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-87614-647-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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
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