Use this wild ride to shake things up with common sense and creativity.
The characters don’t cooperate with the narrator in this metafictive spoof on the classic fairy tale.
When the narrator introduces Little Red Riding Hood, she overhears from her home and calls out, “Hey! Someone’s talking about us!” She comments on all of the narration, in fact, and the narrator responds to her in turn while trying, in vain, to maintain control over the story. Red, though savvy, is willing to play along and act out the story. But, to the narrator’s dismay, the Big Bad Wolf is sick and has sent a pirate in its place, and the heroic woodsman couldn’t make it, so Pinocchio shows up instead. The notion of eating Grandma doesn’t sit well with the pirate, so the narrator can only relent as the characters make up their own happy ending. Colorful, dramatic, cartoony illustrations picture Red and her family with brown skin and puffy black hair; Red’s sister, Blue, uses a wheelchair (disappointingly, it’s not depicted as a self-propelled one); the pirate presents White and has a hook prosthesis. The many voices are differentiated by different typefaces, colors, and speech bubbles, giving the feel of a comic or play. Adults may have a difficult time performing them all as a read-aloud, but a child willing to alternate reading with an adult will enjoy the drama, and the jokes will be more fun that way too. Still, many will find this rewrite more thought-provoking than funny, and that’s not all bad either.
Use this wild ride to shake things up with common sense and creativity. (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-0666-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.
After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.
Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593622360
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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