Obvious messages and contrived situations make knitters and grandmas the primary audience.
Nyeu’s tale concerns a grandmother whose superpower is knitting.
“Nobody could spin a yarn like Granny Fuzz,” relays the omniscient narrator as the village “children” (an assortment of bunnies, foxes, and other creatures) descend underground into the white, long-nosed mammal’s cottage. While she works the spinning wheel and clicks away, Grandma describes the exploits of Iron Purl and her adversary, Bandit Bob, who can be spotted at the scene of every problem. When bats were eating all the berries in the bushes, the legendary knitter wrapped them in woolen cocoons, directing the villains to mitigate the destruction by planting a garden. When Bob’s sparkler set the fairground on fire, wet balls of yarn extinguished the flame, and the heroine swung in on a string to rescue a falling bunny. Busy silk-screened compositions are rendered in a controlled palette of greens, turquoise, mustard, and pinks. Some are fanciful and lively; variation is achieved with a combination of double-page spreads, panels, and targeted speech bubbles. The logic and solutions are a bit forced, however, as when Purl knits contraptions out of lace to safeguard pies that Bob has been stealing or when, after Bob steals socks, she suggests using pompoms to pair mismatched sets. Bob’s backstory—he was lonely and made trouble to gain attention—feels equally manufactured and heavy-handed. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Obvious messages and contrived situations make knitters and grandmas the primary audience. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-525-42870-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Take strength from the dreamers before you and follow your dreams. Or maybe just roll the dice.
Is it a book about aspirations or the backstory for the board game?
Chickapig is defined as “an animal hybrid that is half-chicken and half-pig” and is depicted in yellow, two-legged chick shape with pink pig snout and ears. Young Joe Chickapig lives on a farm that was his grandfather’s dream, but it’s getting Joe down. He dreams of adventure but needs the “courage to follow his heart. / But how could he do it? How could he start?” In a bedtime story, Joe’s mother shares the influential characters that helped Joe’s sailor grandfather “follow his heart against the tide.” It seems that “Grandpa had heard a story told / Of a great big bear who broke the mold. / The bear was tired of striking fear”—so he became a forest doctor and a friend to all. And the bear’s inspiration? “A mouse who went to space.” The mouse, in turn, found hope in a “fierce young dragon” who joined a rock band. And coming full circle, the dragon found courage from a Chickapig warrior who “tired of shields and swords to wield” and established a farm. Chickapig game fans will appreciate this fanciful rhyming tale illustrated in attention-grabbing colors, but readers coming to it cold will note a distinct absence of plot. Mouse and dragon present female; all others are male.
Take strength from the dreamers before you and follow your dreams. Or maybe just roll the dice. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7944-4452-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Printers Row
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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