A hungry wolf just can’t catch a break in these five loosely connected folktales. All are familiar, and amiably retold in large, sequential cartoon panels. Looking dapper in top hat and three-piece suit, the wolf first takes on three pigs (all of whom escape), moves on to the bored and foolish lad who cries “Wolf!” then is subjected to a fashion smackdown by Little Red Riding Hood. He unsuccessfully tries his luck again with the sheep under a woolen fleece snatched from Grandma’s house, and finally proves no match for seven hyperactive goslings whose mother has gone off on an errand. Readers drawn by the unusually large trim size and Alley’s animated, loosely posed figures will linger over the snappy dialogue (“ ‘I’ll teach you to be rude to my granny, you fake!’ screamed Rhonda, now clearly upset. ‘And did no one ever tell you not to wear white after Labor Day?’ ”) and almost feel sorry for the feckless predator—who is last seen eyeing a sign pointing toward Mr. McGregor’s garden and considering turning vegetarian. (Graphic folklore. 7-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59643-275-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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BOOK REVIEW
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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