These monster trucks really are monsters, and their race is sure to get cheering children on the edges of their seats.
A spooky speedway surrounded by creepy trees and with gravestones in the center is the setting for this rhyming tale; mummies, ghosts, witches, and skeletons watch from the stands. Five monster trucks enter the race. “Frankentruck is first to arrive. / With a jump of his cables, he’s alive! He’s alive!” Werewolf Truck croons a tune and howls at the moon, Zombie Truck’s headlights glow green and he drips diesel, and Ghost Truck has a wonderfully curvy shape that tapers at the back and a grille shaped like an open, moaning mouth. The last monster truck is Vampire Truck, his purple spoiler shaped like a cape and fangs overhanging his grille. But those aren’t the only contestants: “out of the pit…with a PUTT and a TOOT / comes a Little Blue Bus, / looking perky…and cute.” It’s a VW bus (though her “nose” is an M in a circle rather than a VW). Unsurprisingly, it’s the latecomer who comes out ahead, though Vampire Truck is hot on her trail and ready to drink her fuel. Wragg’s acrylic-and-digital illustrations are sufficiently dark and creepy, filled with greens, purples, and yellows, and the anthropomorphized trucks truly suit their names.
Monster-truck fans won’t want to miss this Halloween showdown. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234522-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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A slug longs for a hug and finds it unexpectedly.
Doug the slug would really like a hug and plods on, seeking affection. But a caterpillar, bug, spider, and worm want no part of hugging a slug. They are just not feeling it (might they feel sluggish?), voicing their disdain in no uncertain terms with expressions like, “Grimy, slippy!” and “Squelchy, slimy!” What’s a slug to do? Undeterred, Doug keeps trying. He meets Gail, a snail with crimson lipstick and hip, red glasses; she happens to be as grimy and squelchy as he is, so he figures she is the hugger of his dreams. The two embark upon a madcap romantic courtship. Alas, Gail also draws the (slimy) line at hugging Doug. Finally, mournful Doug meets the best hugger and the true love of his life, proving there’s someone for everyone. This charmer will have readers rooting for Doug (and perhaps even wanting to hug him). Expressed in simple, jaunty verses that read and scan smoothly, the brief tale revolves around words that mainly rhyme with Doug and slug. Given that the story stretches vocabulary so well with regard to rhyming words, children can be challenged after a read-aloud session to offer up words that rhyme with slug and snail. The colorful and humorous illustrations are lively and cheerful; googly-eyed Doug is, like the other characters, entertaining and expressive. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Sweet, reassuring fun—and a story to fully embrace. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66590-046-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS
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A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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