“Our dad is a magician, / who can make a bird go poof, / but the day he cooked us pancakes, / he made an awful goof.” In his first picture book, Many (My Life, Take Two, 2000, etc.) cooks up a humorous rhyme about a magician who bungles breakfast. When he uses the wrong cookbook (it’s really a book of tricks), the pancakes take on a life of their own and the three children help chase the fugitive flapjacks as they roll right into town. Lush brushstrokes and shadowy images create drama as Goto’s (Shoeshine Whittaker, 1999, etc.) full-bleed illustrations chronicle the action. In the opening spread, one son yawns, the daughter smirks, and only the littlest child looks amused as the father juggles flour, milk, and sugar. “We’d seen this trick a thousand times,” they say. But when blue sparks envelope the mixing bowl and batter shoots into the flaming frying pan, they know something is different. Saucer-sized pancakes take over the town. They blend into the scenery, becoming the steering wheel on the bus, wheels on a taxicab, and medallions on a fancy hat. In one surreal scene, pancakes rain down as a man and woman in black suits, bowlers, blood red ties, and mirrored sunglasses march by holding giant pancake umbrellas. Back home, the children finally find the real cookbook. The father reverses the spell, turning the pancakes back to batter. “ ‘I’ll fry you up another stack,’ ” he says. “But we said, ‘No! Just watch!’ / Then we toasted frozen waffles / right from the soggy box.” A rhythmic, rip-roaring romp. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8027-8795-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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