It takes everything they’ve got to get this family to the lake in their falling-apart car. In fact, without the help of Junie’s beach ball, Jakie’s surf board, and a generous helping of Poppa’s “chocolate marshmallow fudge delight,” they’d probably still be sitting just outside the farmyard. As parts fly off the car, and the bouncing trip is brought to a halt at each juncture, the red-lettered text springs along creating sound effects, rhythm, and movement, “spitter, spatter, sput!” As each part is replaced—a beach ball for a tire, a surfboard for a floor—new sounds accumulate, making the read-aloud extra lively. “Poppa turned the key, brum brum, brum brum. Wappity babbity / lumpety bumpety / clinkety clankety / bing bang pop!” This single-parent family, illustrated in watercolor and pencil, could be the red-haired cousins of the characters in Root and Barton’s last popular collaborative effort What Baby Wants (1998). Full-bleed, double-paged, oversized pictures will project to medium-sized groups and the text will certainly lock in their attention and more than likely their participation. Only outrageously funny and impossible solutions are offered, showing a sweet Dad and his three children cooperating joyfully in every aspect of their adventure. No reality check is needed here, just high spirits and a rollicking good time. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0919-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
Floyd and Denise update “The Tortoise and the Hare” for primary readers, captioning each soft-focus, semi-rural scene with a short, simple sentence or two. Rabbit proposes running to school, while his friend Turtle takes the bus: no contest at first, as the bus makes stop after deliberate stop, but because Rabbit pauses at a pushcart for a snack, a fresh-looking Turtle greets his panting, disheveled friend on the school steps. There is no explicit moral, but children will get the point—and go on to enjoy Margery Cuyler’s longer and wilder Road Signs: A Harey Race with a Tortoise (p. 957). (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-202679-7
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
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