Minor greed, outsized imaginations and a couple of boys collide in almost wordless sequential panels suggestive of James Stevenson, Jon Agee and Mad magazine. On a tiny patio, two playmates tussle over stuff—a toy ship in an inflatable pool, a bike, bowls of ice cream. Each kid snaggles the other’s temporary possession via the time-tested technique of shouting, “Don’t look now but there’s a...” Conjuring a giant snake, a winged dragon, a striped tiger and more, one boy fleeces the other until—yikes!—their umbrella table plummets through cracking concrete to a creature-teeming milieu surpassing their wildest invocations. In the volcanic jungle where they alight, that contested bike dangles precariously and an ice-cream bowl perches in a tree, freezing the tuckus off a bird that mistakes it for a nest of eggs. When the ice cream attracts a monster, the boys flee—pedaling, diving and bursting upward, to bunk beds, books and—one gathers—rumpuses to come. Briant’s bright palette and storyboarding expertise produce kid-pleasing results wry enough to elicit adult chuckles. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59643-345-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
At her best, Rylant’s (The Ticky-Tacky Doll, below, etc.) sweetness and sentiment fills the heart; in this outing, however, sentimentality reigns and the end result is pretty gooey. Pandora keeps a lighthouse: her destiny is to protect ships at sea. She’s lonely, but loves her work. She rescues Seabold and heals his broken leg, and he stays on to mend his shipwrecked boat. This wouldn’t be so bad but Pandora’s a cat and Seabold a dog, although they are anthropomorphized to the max. Then the duo rescue three siblings—mice!—and make a family together, although Rylant is careful to note that Pandora and Seabold each have their own room. Choosing what you love, caring for others, making a family out of love, it is all very well, but this capsizes into silliness. Formatted to look like the start of a new series. Oh, dear. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-84880-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
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