Why settle for one rousing adventure when you can have millions?
A storyteller’s toolkit, stocked with choose-your-own characters, gear, locales, hazards, and plotlines.
Following a page of instructions, readers will find labeled arrays of playfully imaginative options. First readers are invited to pick an identity from 16 choices—ranging from a “nature expert” with olive skin and dark hair to a light-skinned “jungle baby” in a leopard skin, a befuddled tourist, a writer using a wheelchair, or a monkey. From there it’s on to choose clothing; a mission (“To find gems and jewels,” or maybe a “Jungle Prince”?); equipment; companions; an itinerary; a “greedy developer,” “evil penguin,” or other foe; the enemy’s dastardly scheme; and more on the way to a pile of money, a pedicure, or some other well-earned reward. Unlike the general run of “choose your own adventure” titles, this one prompts readers to fill in the action themselves (“Describe your daring escape”), and none of the options have fatal consequences—explicitly, at least. Also notable is the racial diversity among human(ish) figures, including hovering groups of fairies and pixies. Like its series mates, this rainforest romp outdoes even the likes of Laurel Snyder’s Endlessly Ever After (2022) in getting fledgling yarn spinners up to speed. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Why settle for one rousing adventure when you can have millions? (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7112-7610-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that.
Beatrice Zinker is a kinder, gentler Judy Moody.
Beatrice doesn’t want to be fit in a box. Her first word was “WOW,” not “Mom.” She does her best thinking upside down and prefers to dress like a ninja. Like Judy Moody, she has patient parents and a somewhat annoying younger brother. (She also has a perfectly ordinary older sister.) Beatrice spends all summer planning a top-secret spy operation complete with secret codes and a secret language (pig Latin). But on the first day of third grade, her best friend, Lenny (short for Eleanor), shows up in a dress, with a new friend who wants to play veterinarian at recess. Beatrice, essentially a kind if somewhat quirky kid, struggles to see the upside of the situation and ends up with two friends instead of one. Line drawings on almost every spread add to the humor and make the book accessible to readers who might otherwise balk at its 160 pages. Thankfully, the rhymes in the text do not continue past the first chapter. Children will enjoy the frequent puns and Beatrice’s preference for climbing trees and hanging upside down. The story drifts dangerously close to pedantry when Beatrice asks for advice from a grandmotherly neighbor but is saved by likable characters and upside-down cake. Beatrice seems to be white; Lenny’s surname, Santos, suggests that she may be Latina; their school is a diverse one.
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that. (Fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-6738-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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