A labored effort to squeeze a little more juice from a once-fresh gimmick.
Intrepid readers who don’t mind slipping their hands into places without looking will get what they deserve from this backyard hunt for aliens.
Young Zak is sure that a spaceship has landed in his garden, so out into the night he goes to feel around, followed by a gaggle of skeptical friends wearing rubber alien masks. Mechanically reproducing a trick used to good effect in Is That You, Wolf? (2012) and with less success in sequels ever since, every other spread features a glued-on paper pocket with the legend: “Slide your hand in if you dare… / Alien may be lurking so BEWARE!” Inside each pocket is a patch of sticky tape, knobby plastic or some other textured material that unconvincingly suggests eyeballs, wrinkly skin, dribble or another supposedly scream-worthy substance. Despite broad prompts from both the narrative and the cartoon illustrations, few will be fooled—or, for that matter, startled when a slobbery green pop-up alien leaps out as the last spread is opened.
A labored effort to squeeze a little more juice from a once-fresh gimmick. (Novelty. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7641-6712-6
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work.
A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
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