Here is Poppleton at his brief, mellow, sentimental best, mooning over the pleasure of friends in the coziest of settings. Accompanied by artwork that presents Poppleton as a lovable porker with a hint of the rascal in his body language, Rylant’s (The High-Rise Private Eyes, p. 964, etc.) first story finds Poppleton going solo to the movies. At first this seems a nifty idea—no having to share the eats—but fast becomes an exercise in loneliness, as Poppleton has no one to share the laughs and shivers and tears with. It is always better to have a friend to join in the fun, he concludes. Next, Poppleton and three pals have a quilting bee, during which they entertain each other with stories about their respective pasts, and images from the stories get sewn into the quilt, as if by osmosis. Afterward, they take turns using the quilt: “Poppleton got it in summer. Fillmore got it in fall. Cherry Sue got it in winter. And Hudson got it in spring. Every season of the year, someone was sleeping under stories.” Lastly, Poppleton runs out of bath emollients—nothing he liked better than a soak with lavender, lemon, and silky milk—so he visits Cherry Sue to see if he can borrow some. She only takes showers, but offers him some sweet smells from the kitchen: Blueberries? Vanilla? Cinnamon? No, says Poppleton, but lets go get something to eat. “Poppleton missed his soak that day. But it was okay. He was very happy smelling like a banana split.” Poppleton is a darling, especially so in these stories, which can be favorably paired with tales in which he is a bit more of a rogue element. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-590-84839-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
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
A serene, feel-good outing with a cozy, old-fashioned feel.
In this Japanese import, the first in a long-running series to appear in English, two girls ride bikes through a forest—with stops for clover-blossom tea and jam sandwiches.
It’s such a benign wood that Chirri and Chirra—depicted as a prim pair of identical twins with straight bob cuts—think nothing of sharing both a lunch spot and a nap beneath a tree with a bear and a rabbit. Moreover, at convenient spots along the way there is a forest cafe with a fox waiter plus “tables and chairs of all different size” to accommodate the diverse forest clientele, a bakery offering “bread in all different shapes and jam in all different colors,” and, just as the sun goes down, a forest hotel with similarly diverse keys and doors. That night a forest concert draws the girls and the hotel’s animal guests to their balconies to join in: “La-la-la, La-la-la. What a wonderful night in the forest!” Despite heavy doses of cute, the episode is saved from utter sappiness by the inclusive spirit of the forest stops and the delightfully unforced way that the girls offer greetings to a pair of honeybees at a tiny adjacent table in the cafe, show no anxiety at the spider dangling above their napping place, and generally accept their harmonious sylvan world as a safe and friendly place. Doi creates her illustrations with colored pencil, pastel, and crayon, crafting them to look like mid-20th-century lithographs.
A serene, feel-good outing with a cozy, old-fashioned feel. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59270-199-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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