A sweet tale but not in the audience’s developmental wheelhouse.
“Rabbit is neat [and] Hare is organized,” but Bunny is messy, loud, and inconsiderate, which makes for a tough co-living arrangement.
Rabbit and Hare use devices to listen to their favorite music privately while Bunny dances around the house loudly strumming his banjo. Bunny neglects his share of household chores, leaving the others to pick up the slack. He interrupts them when they have visitors and makes noise when they need to concentrate, and he hogs their shared facilities. Frustrated and exasperated, his roommates ask Bunny to leave. Bunny moves back home with his parents, but the readjustment is difficult. Rabbit and Hare’s search for a new roommate is just as unsuccessful. They discover they miss one another, so Bunny moves back in with a better attitude, and Hare and Rabbit are more tolerant of his quirks. These anthropomorphic leporidae present as male young adults. Their appearances and personalities are distinct and amusing in Langdo’s bright ink-and-watercolor illustrations, complementing and enhancing the text with detailed vignettes of the action. Broder keeps the tone light in this gentle lesson in tolerance, consideration, and getting along. But the concept of living with roommates instead of their families will probably be foreign to many young readers and outside their developmental comfort zones; these are not child stand-ins à la Frog and Toad but rather young, independent adults.
A sweet tale but not in the audience’s developmental wheelhouse. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9990249-6-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Ripple Grove
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode.
A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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