Walter is a modern boy in jeans and baseball cap who describes his uncle Roy’s ideal “job” as the captain of a pirate ship in this mildly amusing but ultimately unsuccessful mid-level easy reader. The narrator might be a 21st-century boy, but the pirates must be from a previous century because they’re clearly not a politically correct crew: lots of peg legs and eye patches, no ethnic diversity, and no women crew members. (Historically, there were a few women pirates.) The only female in the story is the narrator’s mother, shown in her dress and apron serving coffee to her husband, who is relaxing in his easy chair. Most problematic is the boss of all the pirates, who has a hook replacing one hand, a particular point of objection for advocates for the physically disabled, who have strongly objected to the negative stereotyping of prosthetic devices on pirates first evidenced with Captain Hook in Peter Pan. Albee’s (The Oreo Cookie Counting Book, not reviewed, etc.) text has a controlled vocabulary, but there is no structured pattern as stated in the specifications on the back cover for this level of easy reader. The text is not predictable from the illustrations, and much of the dry humor (Uncle Roy’s “office has a great view”—the ocean from the deck of the ship) will not be easily understood by new readers. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-307-26216-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Golden Books/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
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
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
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