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MABELA THE CLEVER

“In the early times, some were clever and some were foolish. The Cat was one of the clever ones. The mice were mostly foolish.” So begins MacDonald’s latest folktale retelling, this one from the Limba people of Sierra Leone. When the Cat invites the mice to join the secret Cat Society, they are only too pleased and cheerfully line themselves up for the “initiation march” while the Cat scoops them up and puts them in her sack. Luckily for the mice, there is one clever one, Mabela, who remembers her father’s sage advice and escapes from the Cat just in time, rescuing the other mice as the Cat languishes in a thorn bush. The energetic text is trademark MacDonald (Pickin’ Peas, 1998, etc.), written purely to be read aloud, and punctuated by a chant that invites children to join in. Coffey’s (Red Berry Wool, 1999) saturated acrylics depict a vaguely African anthropomorphized world where animals live in grass huts. Bright borders set off the text blocks, and occasionally frame a detail, such as a tiny tongue sneaking out to lick a delicate chop when the cat greets the eager mice: “ ‘Oh, my, you have ALL arrived!’ said the Cat. ‘How delicious . . . I mean, how delightful.’ ” The Cat is orange, and her pointy green eyes protrude from the plane of her face, giving her a truly shifty-eyed (and somewhat disconcerting) look. Mabela herself is a little red mouse, whose enormous eyes dominate her bucktoothed face. The tale is somewhat moralizing at the end—“Limba grandparents say, ‘If a person is clever, it is because someone has taught them their cleverness’ ”—but children will respond nevertheless to this plucky little heroine who saves herself by her wits. (Picture book/folktale. 4-8)

Pub Date: May 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-8075-4902-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Whitman

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001

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PETE THE CAT'S 12 GROOVY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among

Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.

If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”

Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018

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CREEPY PAIR OF UNDERWEAR!

Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...

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Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.

Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.

Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017

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