A silly, sweet bedtime tale brought to life.
A dad recalls a childhood adventure.
While preparing for bed, young Estella jumps on Dad’s head, toy sword in hand. This introduction foreshadows an equally dramatic, goofy bedtime story drawn from her father Andy’s broad imagination. In this reimagined fairy tale, young Andy is walking through Central Park on a field trip when he stumbles upon a man cloaked in wizard gear. Skeptical about the so-called wizard’s abilities, Andy teases him and, to his surprise, is swiftly transformed into a frog. The wizard then tasks Frog Andy with a quest to regain human form, and that’s where things rev up—the wizard demands a particular basketball player’s signature, a lion’s tail hair, and homemade matzo ball soup. Accompanied by a fox whom the wizard has turned into a pug, the amphibious boy must scour the city, from Madison Square Garden to the Bronx Zoo, to a pale-skinned young girl’s apartment hallway, and finally back to a classic city hot dog cart. Though the human re-transformation doesn’t demand a kiss, as in the original, Andy does learn an important lesson about being well mannered. Like the previous volume, the narrative is speckled with digressions and gags, and the result is an adorable amble in the park. Crandall’s illustrations hit many bright, happy notes, reveling in a classically cartoonish Big Apple. Andy and Estella are olive-skinned and dark-haired; other players are diverse.
A silly, sweet bedtime tale brought to life. (Graphic fiction. 5-10)Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9780316592932
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Little, Brown Ink
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
A fun-filled adventure that celebrates the true superpowers of the middle-grade imagination: chaos and creativity.
Two dramatically different boys acquire the power of invisibility, with raucous results.
Stanley is anxious about starting a new school—it’s the middle of the year, and everyone else already knows each other. He’s also poorly prepared for the Science Fair, for which he creates a wonky robot cobbled together from recyclable materials. Gene, an aspiring scientist with a collection of crackpot inventions, has a far more ambitious entry: a powerful stain remover. Both Stanley and Gene become drenched in the mixture and are rendered invisible. Stanley, in stealth mode, explores his new town and enjoys relief from social pressures. Meanwhile, Gene, incensed that Stanley’s robot has won first prize, takes revenge, secretly wreaking havoc by vandalizing bikes and destroying Stanley’s treehouse. Though Stanley’s search for justice and an invisibility antidote drives the plot, the book’s buzzy energy relies on Gene’s zany creations. The conflict between aspiring hero and eager villain reaches its apex in Gene’s basement laboratory, where the two battle each other using Gene’s collection of contraptions in a broadly comical, captivating denouement. In the wake of this destruction, the boys’ final reconciliation opens the door for more creative adventures. Action-packed artwork feels reminiscent of comic strips or animated shows; Stanley recalls a particularly earnest Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes), while Gene is reminiscent of the titular character on Dexter’s Lab. Both Stanley and Gene are white.
A fun-filled adventure that celebrates the true superpowers of the middle-grade imagination: chaos and creativity. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593532645
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A winner.
When a young girl’s imagination and creativity are co-opted by a mysterious new friend, she must find a way to regain what is rightfully hers.
Sandy is a brown-skinned, dark-haired girl with big black eyes and a vivid imagination. At night, as she goes to sleep, she catches the lights bobbing about in her room and turns them into anything she imagines. The next day is spent drawing the fantastical creatures from her dreams, much to the detriment of her schoolwork. When a tall, pale-skinned girl with purple hair befriends her, Sandy is excited, though there is something eerie and unsettling about her new companion. Her excitement soon turns to anger as Morfie enters her imaginative nighttime world and tries to take it over. Readers will cheer at the clever way in which Sandy regains control. Using a lovely palette that includes a liberal amount of rich, dark purple, Colombian-born Alvarez has drawn a world that harks back to her native Bogotá and days in Catholic school, evoking it in wonderful detail and atmosphere. Her pages are not crowded yet are filled with details that will engage readers. The beings that inhabit Sandy’s nighttime world are simply delightful. The album size, cloth spine binding, and spot gloss on the cover are the icing on the cake of this beautiful graphic novel.
A winner. (Graphic fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-910620-13-7
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Nobrow Ltd.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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