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UGLY BIRD

Name: UGLY BIRD
Author: Russell Hoban

by Russell Hoban ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 18, 1969

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Any youngster who's ever nurtured a secret invulnerable self will take wing with Ugly Bird. Reassured by Mama that his detractors "don't know who you are and what you are," he proceeds on his first flight to find out. . . When the other birds taunt him, he puts on his stone suit and becomes a sling shot projectile hitting them; when he falls, he is Handsome Stone for Frog's game of leapstone and skipfrog; when he sinks to the bottom of the pond, he sheds his stone suit and becomes Shiny Fish swallowing a worm who asks him the time ("Lunchtime"); when he is hooked with the worm, he strips to his understone and becomes Little Pebble dropping on a sleeping snapping turtle ("Good aftersnap"). . . and so on through twists of fate and turns of phrase until, reversing the process, he returns home to dinner and bed. "I know who I am and what I am. Some of who is handsome and some is shiny and some is little and some is buzzing." "Did you say some of who is handsome?" says his mama. "I knew it all along." Probably the best redress since Max put on his wolf suit. . .

Pub Date: Aug. 18, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: April 28, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1969

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JIM'S LION
by Russell Hoban ; illustrated by Alexis Deacon

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ROSIE'S MAGIC HORSE
by Russell Hoban & illustrated by Quentin Blake

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SOONCHILD
by Russell Hoban & illustrated by Alexis Deacon

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WRECKING BALL

From the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series , Vol. 14

by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.

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The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.

When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Amulet/Abrams

Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019

Categories:

GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney

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DIPER ÖVERLÖDE
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney

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BIG SHOT
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney

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NO BRAINER
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney

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DIPER ÖVERLÖDE
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney

- BOOK REVIEW
BIG SHOT
by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney

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Jeff Kinney Receives France’s Order of Arts and Letters

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Laura Bush Releases Summer Reading List for Kids

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LITTLE BLUE TRUCK'S CHRISTMAS

by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2014

Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...

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The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.

The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.

Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)