Youngsters will laugh along with the lovable lamb in this Wile E. Coyote prototype.
There’s nothing as tasty as lamb for dinner….
A determined and rather hungry wolf meets a lovable and very crafty lamb in this North American trickster tale retold just for early readers. As with the other offerings in the series, this selection is right on target, with charming, colorful illustrations; crisp, clear sentences; memorable and entertaining characters; and a laugh-out-loud plot. In each chapter, the clever lamb thwarts yet another of the wolf’s attempts to eat her for dinner, using her wits in innovative and surprising ways. She persuades the wolf her relatives are nearby, tells him she’s not yet fat enough and convinces him she must be accompanied by cheese. The writing features repetition to help youngsters practice—and succeed—as well as vocabulary nicely selected for readers who have just passed the rookie stage. Though a bit more information about the origin of the story would have been a nice addition, readers will thoroughly enjoy this selection and root wholeheartedly for the heroic lamb. A nice twist at the end shows a sheep who lives to laugh another day and helps her own lambs do so as well. Excellent for home and school reading.
Youngsters will laugh along with the lovable lamb in this Wile E. Coyote prototype. (Early reader/folktale. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-84686-872-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
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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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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