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THE AWFUL AARDVARKS SHOP FOR SCHOOL

Name: THE AWFUL AARDVARKS SHOP FOR SCHOOL
Author: Reeve Lindbergh
ISBN: 0-670-88763-3

by Reeve Lindbergh & illustrated by Tracey Campbell Pearson ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2000

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The first week of September means the annual back-to-school shopping spree for school supplies, and even not-quite-civilized aardvarks need new backpacks, notebooks, and markers (both the fat kind and the skinny kind, as every parent of a first-grader knows). The author and illustrator (The Awful Aardvarks Go to School,1997) team up for this second accounting of amusing aardvark antics, with Lindbergh’s clever rhyming couplets and a continuing device of the shopping list repeating on the border of each two-page spread. The quartet of Awful Aardvarks romps through the Shop-All-Day Mall as items are crossed off their list, causing mischief in one shop after another and headaches for the animal shopkeepers. Pearson’s loose watercolors are a busy delight, with expressive faces on the horrified store clerks and fellow shoppers and lots of little details to discover in multiple readings. Just after exiting a candy store with sticky hands and faces, the aardvarks cause particular trouble for the bowtied bear shopkeepers in the Bears and Bubbles Bookstore. “All the shoppers stopped shopping and gave them weird looks. The Aardvarks were stuck—they were stuck to the books!” (Don't miss the display of award-winning “Called-a-Cat Books.”) No money changes hands for all the aardvark purchases, and no shopping bags (or momma aardvark) are seen to hold all the new supplies, but who needs a realistic view of the modern mall when you can have roly-poly aardvarks racing on Rollerblades or trying on feather boas? A rollicking romp of a picture book that will make an excellent first-day-of-school story for primary-grade kids. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: July 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-670-88763-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
HOMER THE LIBRARY CAT
by Reeve Lindbergh & illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf

- BOOK REVIEW
MY LITTLE GRANDMOTHER OFTEN FORGETS
by Reeve Lindbergh & illustrated by Kathryn Brown

- BOOK REVIEW
THE VISIT
by Reeve Lindbergh & illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin

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WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES, MR. BROWN?

by Justin Rhodes ; illustrated by Heather Dickinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2023

Pedestrian.

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Mr. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing—a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.

Children will be delighted that the titular Mr. Brown is in fact a child. After Mr. Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Eventually—after colorful pages that enable readers to spot footwear hiding—the family gives up on their hunt, and Mr. Brown asks to be carried around for the chores. He rides on his father’s shoulders as Papa gets his work done, as seen on a double-page spread of vignettes. The resolution is more of a lesson for the adult readers than for children, a saccharine moment where father and son express their joy that the missing shoes gave them the opportunity for togetherness—with advice for other parents to appreciate those fleeting moments themselves. Though the art is bright and cheerful, taking advantage of the setting, it occasionally is misaligned with the text (for example, the text states that Mr. Brown is wearing his favorite green shirt while the illustration is of a shirt with wide stripes of white and teal blue, which could confuse readers at the point where they’re trying to figure out which family member is Mr. Brown). The family is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: March 14, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-5460-0389-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: WorthyKids/Ideals

Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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BUNNY MONEY

From the Max & Ruby series

by Rosemary Wells & illustrated by Rosemary Wells ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1997

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In the siblings' latest adventure, their grandmother is having a birthday (again! see Bunny Cakes, p. 67), so Ruby takes Max shopping. A music box with skating ballerinas is Ruby's idea of the perfect present; Max favors a set of plastic vampire teeth. Ruby's $15 goes fast, and somehow, most of it is spent on Max. The music box of Ruby's dreams costs $100, so she settles for musical earrings instead. There isn't even a dollar left for the bus, so Max digs out his lucky quarter and phones Grandma, who drives them home—happily wearing her new earrings and vampire teeth. As ever, Wells's sympathies are with the underdog: Max, in one-word sentences, out-maneuvers his officious sister once again. Most six- year-olds will be able to do the mental subtraction necessary to keep track of Ruby's money, and Wells helps by illustrating the wallet and its dwindling contents at the bottom of each page where a transaction occurs. Younger children may need to follow the author's suggestion and have an adult photocopy the ``bunny money'' on the endpapers, so they can count it out. Either way, the book is a great adjunct to primary-grade math lessons. (Picture book. 4-7)