It's always disconcerting when a character created by one illustrator returns in the style of another, but Barton's offhand absurdity well suits this not-too-serious fable of electronic over-consumption. And Hoban does more than you'd expect with a story that begins when father Crocodile arrives home to find the fuses blown again and goes about unplugging "the electric toothbrushes and his reducing machine and his quadraphonic hi-fi. He unplugged the bedroom TV and the kitchen TV and the living-room TV. He unplugged the blender and the biofeedback and the Slimmo. He unplugged Emma's and Arthur's stereos, and he unplugged the Dracula"—this last being the Hi-Vamp for Arthur's electric guitar and the presumed chief cause of all the blow-outs. Mother and Emma manage okay in their unplugged headsets (life just feels more natural with them on) and Arthur, of all things, passes his time reading mysterious large library books; it's father, missing the news and driven crazy by the crickets, who plugs in at last. Later Arthur, explaining all the research, unveils his water wheel generator—but when the family eventually blows that too, it is Arthur who has learned to be content with playing his own quiet composition on his non-acoustic guitar. Though without the wicked twist that made Dinner at Alberta's a treat, it's a good sneaky generational joke, pulled off with cool.
Pub Date: Sept. 6, 1978
ISBN: 0440401836
Page Count: 52
Publisher: T.Y. Crowell
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite.
Humpty Dumpty, classically portrayed as an egg, recounts what happened after he fell off the wall in Santat’s latest.
An avid ornithophile, Humpty had loved being atop a high wall to be close to the birds, but after his fall and reassembly by the king’s men, high places—even his lofted bed—become intolerable. As he puts it, “There were some parts that couldn’t be healed with bandages and glue.” Although fear bars Humpty from many of his passions, it is the birds he misses the most, and he painstakingly builds (after several papercut-punctuated attempts) a beautiful paper plane to fly among them. But when the plane lands on the very wall Humpty has so doggedly been avoiding, he faces the choice of continuing to follow his fear or to break free of it, which he does, going from cracked egg to powerful flight in a sequence of stunning spreads. Santat applies his considerable talent for intertwining visual and textual, whimsy and gravity to his consideration of trauma and the oft-overlooked importance of self-determined recovery. While this newest addition to Santat’s successes will inevitably (and deservedly) be lauded, younger readers may not notice the de-emphasis of an equally important part of recovery: that it is not compulsory—it is OK not to be OK.
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-682-6
Page Count: 45
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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