Homer the dog feels ``disgusted'' when he hears that his friend Mrs. Gallivant is moving from the house next door—he'll miss her biscuits, the tennis balls she threw for him, the shade tree in her yard. When he finds his master, Hank, putting his own house up for sale, Homer tries every trick he knows to stop the sale from going through. He frightens off buyers by showering them with dirt and scratching as if he had fleas. He tears wallpaper off the walls. He runs to his friends' house and winds up locked in their garage for two days. When he finally gets out, he doesn't care about moving so much—he just wants Hank. But at home, a surprise awaits him: Mrs. Gallivant is back, and she and Hank have swapped houses. Levin, a cartoonist, provides just the right lighthearted illustrations to support the tone of the text. A funny story about the anxieties of moving from the author of the Mrs. Toggle books. (Fiction/Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-775457-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Four Winds/MacMillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
The can’t-miss subject of this Step into Reading series entry—a unicorn with a magic horn who also longs for wings—trumps its text, which is dry even by easy-reader standards. A boy unicorn, whose horn has healing powers, reveals his wish to a butterfly in a castle garden, a bluebird in the forest and a snowy white swan in a pond. Falling asleep at the edge of the sea, the unicorn is visited by a winged white mare. He heals her broken wing and she flies away. After sadly invoking his wish once more, he sees his reflection: “He had big white wings!” He flies off after the mare, because he “wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’ ” Perfectly suiting this confection, Silin-Palmer’s pictures teem with the mass market–fueled iconography of what little girls are (ostensibly) made of: rainbows, flowers, twinkly stars and, of course, manes down to there. (Easy reader. 4-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-83117-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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