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juushikaTitle: Tuesday
Author: David Wiesner
Published: Clarion Books, 1991
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 539,790
Text Number: 1985
Read Because: more spooky picture books; hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: An all but wordless picture book about the day that something strange happened in a small town. What a great concept, but the weirdly static, stiff flying frogs saps so much life from this, and art is all it has.
Title: Little Mouse's Big Book of Beasts (Little Mouse's Big Books 2)
Author: Emily Gravett
Published: Macmillan, 2013
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 539,820
Text Number: 1986
Read Because: more! also I've read & loved some of her other books; hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Minimal narrative, maximal interaction. This is delightfully tactile, modified both by mouse and reader, messy with tape and a traveling paint palette, with cutouts and flippable inserts. The library copy I read is showing some wear. I don't love this half was much as the Big Book of Fears; it's not as scary, and there's something that rubs me wrong about legitimizing/generalizing for young readers the fear of common scary animals. Still, I'm still an easy sell on Gravett's work, which is quirky, messy, and full of personality.
Title: The Skull
Author: Jon Klassen
Published: Candlewick Press, 2023
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 105
Total Page Count: 539,925
Text Number: 1987
Read Because: more! also I've read the author before so this has been on my radar for a while; hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: In this modified retelling of a folktale, a little girl runs away to discover a mansion inhabited by a talking skull and haunted by a headless skeleton. I love the format of this little text, a picture book expanded into a neat, sturdy volume, with sparse writing and a bounty of Klassen's dark and textured illustrations: eminently pleasing. Klassen's Otilla, blank-faced and able, is delightful, and the climax is pleasure after so many picture books that feel compelled to sweeten everything scary in children's literature. But I like the pacing better in every version that I found digging around online (the source Klassen references, and some others from folklore websites); skipping the "haunted meal with a skull" scene is regrettable, and the staid tour of the house is no replacement. This is better as an experience than a narrative, but it's a great experience.
Author: David Wiesner
Published: Clarion Books, 1991
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 539,790
Text Number: 1985
Read Because: more spooky picture books; hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: An all but wordless picture book about the day that something strange happened in a small town. What a great concept, but the weirdly static, stiff flying frogs saps so much life from this, and art is all it has.
Title: Little Mouse's Big Book of Beasts (Little Mouse's Big Books 2)
Author: Emily Gravett
Published: Macmillan, 2013
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 539,820
Text Number: 1986
Read Because: more! also I've read & loved some of her other books; hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Minimal narrative, maximal interaction. This is delightfully tactile, modified both by mouse and reader, messy with tape and a traveling paint palette, with cutouts and flippable inserts. The library copy I read is showing some wear. I don't love this half was much as the Big Book of Fears; it's not as scary, and there's something that rubs me wrong about legitimizing/generalizing for young readers the fear of common scary animals. Still, I'm still an easy sell on Gravett's work, which is quirky, messy, and full of personality.
Title: The Skull
Author: Jon Klassen
Published: Candlewick Press, 2023
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 105
Total Page Count: 539,925
Text Number: 1987
Read Because: more! also I've read the author before so this has been on my radar for a while; hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: In this modified retelling of a folktale, a little girl runs away to discover a mansion inhabited by a talking skull and haunted by a headless skeleton. I love the format of this little text, a picture book expanded into a neat, sturdy volume, with sparse writing and a bounty of Klassen's dark and textured illustrations: eminently pleasing. Klassen's Otilla, blank-faced and able, is delightful, and the climax is pleasure after so many picture books that feel compelled to sweeten everything scary in children's literature. But I like the pacing better in every version that I found digging around online (the source Klassen references, and some others from folklore websites); skipping the "haunted meal with a skull" scene is regrettable, and the staid tour of the house is no replacement. This is better as an experience than a narrative, but it's a great experience.
