Review by New York Times Review
On the back cover of this witty sendup of "The Runaway Bunny" is a rabbit sphinx balefully overlooking a "mummy" chasing after a child. That pretty much suras up Rex's comical take on Margaret Wise Brown's tender classic. "If you try to get me," says the little mummy, "I will turn into a serpen that lurks at the bottom of the sea." Mother Mummy, a spiny octopus wearing a pharaoh hat, angrily replies, "I will become a sea monster that will wrap around you and never let go." Knowledge of the original not essential, but helpful. THE SCARECROW'S DANCE By Jane Yolen. Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Unpaged. Simon & Schuster. $16.99. (Ages 4 to 8) In Ibatoulline's haunting illustrations, a "wild wind" takes a forlorn scarecrow and sends it dancing across fields. Looking eerily human , it flies over cornstalks into a starlit sky. The reader may have mixed feelings about the message when the scarecrow remembers his place and bows in a kind of prayer to his wooden pole, "which - tall and straight - just fit his soul." The pictures hint at a different story. AGAINST THE ODDS By Marjolijn Hof. Translated by Johanna H. Prins and Johanna W. Prins. 124 pp. Groundwood/Anansi. $18.95. (Ages 9 to 12) This first novel, by a Dutch writer, shows the impact at home when a father on a dangerous mission (he's a doctor specializing in war zones) goes missing. Kiki obsessively imagines that she can somehow lower the odds of his being killed. But most strikingly, the novel lets us see her parents as she does - as real and flawed, if lovable, people. Her father isn't forced into peril: "He likes to be needed." Her mother copes but has little left over for Kiki. THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED A FLY Illustrated by Jeremy Holmes. Unpaged. Chronicle. $16.99. (Ages 3 and up) A mysteriously popular subject for picture books, "the old lady who swallowed a fly" has never looked creepier or more inviting than in this striking book shaped like a slim tie-box. Two eyes at the top peer through plastic-covered spectacles, and as the story reaches the inevitable outcome ("There was an old lady who swallowed a horse. / She died of course"), they suddenly shut - a wonderful comic effect that may cause squeals of delight. MAX AND THE DUMB FLOWER PICTURE By Martha Alexander with James Rumford. Unpaged. Charlesbridge. $9.95. (Ages 4 to 7) The problem here for a freethinking pre-schooler is presented on the first page: "Max didn't want to color the dumb flower picture. Miss Tilley wanted him to." Instead of filling in the prefab flower for Mother's Day, Max (looking wonderfully grumpy) runs off to make his own drawing. It's a triumph when the class joyfully follows suit. Martha Alexander (1920-2006) left notes and sketches for this story about the possibilities of "a blank sheet of paper," and James Rumford ably completed it. FROM "THE SCARECROW'S DANCE" THE BOG BABY By Jeanne Willis. Illustrated by Gwen Millward. Unpaged. Schwartz & Wade Books. $16.99. (Ages 3 to 7) The hopeful expression on the bright blue Bog Baby - a creature that may be found when one is not playing at Annie's house, as promised - is the main selling point of this charmingly conceived modern fable. The narrator remembers the day she sneaked off with her sister to the "magic pond" to go fishing, but instead found a Bog Baby, which they tried to keep in a bucket, feeding him cake crumbs. In the end, of course, they had to let him go, "back where he belonged." JULIE JUST
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 23, 2009]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Rex, who parodied Goodnight Moon with the creepy Goodnight Goon, pokes monstrous fun at another Margaret Wise Brown/Clement Hurd collaboration, The Runaway Bunny. Instead of the cozy call-and-response of Brown's rabbits, Rex crafts an amusing, mock-threatening exchange between a green-faced mummy and her son, who is threatening to run away. " 'If you run away,' said Mother Mummy, 'I will get you! For you are my rotten little mummy!' " Though their conversation is neither cute nor fuzzy, the images reveal mutual affection. When the child mummy says he "will become a gargoyle and hide on a freezing mountaintop," his mother responds that she "will turn into a dragon and breathe fire on you to keep you warm!" A double spread, modeled on Hurd's wordless paintings, shows the dragon heating the grinning gargoyle, who says, "That's a little hot!" Only when the little mummy threatens to become a soccer and piano-playing "little boy" rabbit (he and his family are shown in a familiar green room with a red carpet) does his mother express horror. Rex fondly and cleverly imitates the original, echoing its tenderness even as he mocks it. Ages 3-5. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-Children will enjoy comparing this parody page by page to Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny (HarperCollins, 1942). When a little mummy gets in trouble, he begins an imaginary game of chase with his mother. Distinctive headgear and occasional bandages identify the two through their spooky transformations. When her child becomes a serpent, gargoyle, or huge bat, the mother becomes the sea monster, dragon, or ancient cathedral necessary to be with her child. Only when the little mummy becomes a boy (actually a bunny) who "takes karate and learns to play piano" does his mother have to use her "most savage, awful, terrible, bloodcurdling shriek" to save him. She bursts into a room, which Clement Hurd might have painted, and terrifies the parents while the green goon from Rex's Goodnight Goon (Putnam, 2008) peers through the window. Little mummy thinks it's all a scream and decides to be his mother's "rotten little mummy" forever. Rex uses pencil drawings colored in Photoshop for his lively cartoon illustrations. Librarians might pair this story with Brown's classic or with Robert San Souci's Cinderella Skeleton (Harcourt, 2000) for a spooky take on another classic tale and an eerie, laugh-filled storytime.-Mary Jean Smith, Southside Elementary School, Lebanon, TN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
"Once there was a little mummy who wanted to run away. 'If you run away,' said Mother Mummy, 'I will get you! For you are my rotten little mummy!' " As he did in 2008's Goodnight Goon, Rex puts a monstrous spin on a Margaret Wise Brown favorite. True to the pattern set forth in the original, mummy and mommy imagine themselves turning into a variety of monsters, from sea serpent to gargoyle to bat and so on. The parody quickly pales, but the author rescues himself with a metatextual turn to social satire: The little mummy says, "I will become a little boy who takes karate and learns to play piano!" as he imagines a little white bunny in a great green room. The horror. (Picture book. 10 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
