Underwear stylin’ with Frog—keep an eye out for its contagious fashion statement.
If you were an orange-spotted jungle frog, the last thing you’d want to lose is your underpants.
It is the stuff of troubling dreams, but Frog is taking it fairly well. Sort of. “Hopping through the jungle— / ‘Help me! Help me! / What became of dignity? / They stole my underpants!’ ” Newcomer MacIver can turn a phrase in just the right fashion to find purchase in children’s ears—internal rhymes, couplets, quatrains, some intriguing new vocabulary—and they play nicely with Chapman’s cheery watercolors. Teddy is the first to lend Frog a hand, even though he “hides a smile. / ‘Who would steal your undies? / It’s hardly worth their while.’ ” Frog thinks otherwise: “Every frog would give his legs / to own a pair like these.” Chimpanzee joins the hunt, as does Mr. Elephant: “ ‘How dreadful!’ cries the elephant. ‘Now, please don’t think me rude, / but I am shocked to see a frog / so plainly in the nude.’ ” They find the unmentionables—100 spotted jungle frogs are playing with them—and then have to outfit all the frogs with briefs (made from lakka leaves), which makes Frog unhappy, as he is no longer unique. His inspired act of self-expression: He’ll wear his backward. Sure, it’s cockamamie, but it takes on life when set to the music of rhyme and rhythm. A guffawing read-along with a smart taste for verbiage.
Underwear stylin’ with Frog—keep an eye out for its contagious fashion statement. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6782-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Too many bugs, figuratively.
Lucy, “the youngest member of a family of fireflies,” must overcome an irrational, moon-induced anxiety in order to leave her family tree trunk and glow.
The first six pages pull readers into a lush, beautiful world of nighttime: “When the sun has set, silence falls over the Big Forest, and all of the nighttime animals wake up.” Mixed media provide an enchanting forest background, with stylized flora and fauna eventually illuminated by a large, benign moon, because the night “doesn’t like to catch them by surprise.” Turning the page catches readers by surprise, though: the family of fireflies is decidedly comical and silly-looking. Similarly, the text moves from a lulling, magical cadence to a distinct shift in mood as the bugs ready themselves for their foray into the night: “They wave their bottoms in the air, wiggle their feelers, take a deep, deep breath, and sing, ‘Here we go, it’s time to glow!’ ” It’s an acceptable change, but more unevenness follows. Lucy’s excitement about finally joining the other bugs turns to “sobbing” two nights in a row. Instead of directly linking her behavior to understandable reactions of children to newness, the text undermines itself by making Lucy’s parents’ sweet reassurances impotent and using the grandmother’s scientific explanation of moonlight as an unnecessary metaphor. Further detracting from the story, the text becomes ever denser and more complex over the book’s short span.
Too many bugs, figuratively. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-84-16147-00-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cuento de Luz
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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