Review by New York Times Review
CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS are called picture books for a reason. The words are vital, of course, and they usually play an equal role, but the pictures pretty much always do the heavy lifting. In books where the words are understated or spare, the pictures are often overstated and elaborate. And then there are the wordless picture books, where the pictures don't even share the spotlight. In these five new picture books, the pictures are back at center stage, but the spotlight is on the words - or play of words. This subtle relationship shift has consequences. As the wordplay gets more complex, the pictures must exert more effort and ingenuity to make sense out of it. The result is uniquely offbeat, and wildly whimsical. Most kids are familiar with the cryptic question: "Why is 6 afraid of 7?" The answer is Tara Lazar's latest title: "7 Ate 9." Lazar has transformed this classic riddle into an improbable whodunit, featuring an all-star cast of large, brightly colored, walking, talking numbers. The pun-laden story, told in the voice of a hard-boiled private eye (played, naturally, by the letter I), involves the attention-seeking number 6 (a.k.a. The Client), who tries to pin a dreadful crime (cannibalism!) on the elusive number 9. Along the way there are supporting roles from Zero (shrewdly posing as an 8), and 11 (never far from 7) and ?, a waitress who serves pi. Yes, pi. If this seems a little complicated, well, it is, but in a stylish, film noir kind of way. Lazar's crisp, well-paced prose, combined with Ross MacDonald's dynamic illustrations, make the story a lot of fun to read, even if you have to backtrack to get your numbers straight. Think of it as a kid-friendly version of "The Maltese Falcon," only with larger than life-size numbers, and no cigarette smoke. In Susan Hood's "Double Take!" a boy, his cat and an elephant wander around the city, acting out the definitions of opposite words. It begins simply enough, with Jay Fleck's expert compositions showing the difference between left and right, asleep and awake. But soon the concept shifts, from basic opposites to explaining what makes an opposite an opposite. Scale, perspective and point of view all come into play. Hood's rhyming prose gradually builds to a scene of a wild roller coaster ride, where she asks the reader to "do a quick double take." Fleck's picture shows the cat tied to a helium balloon, but the cat is above and the balloon is below - a clue that proves that the right-side-up book is now upside down. It's a satisfying highlight to a stimulating book. Rebecca Van Slyke has created a brave young cowgirl/etymologist in "Lexie the Word Wrangler." Lexie lives "west of the Mississippi," where, along with corralling "cantankerous cattle," she can lasso words from thin air. It's a place where trees sprout "baby letters," which grow into multisyllabic words, which are tossed into stew pots and herded into sentences, which eventually become stories. In other words: an ideal location for a writer's retreat. However, all is not hunky-dory in this wordplay utopia. A "word rustler" is on the loose. He has removed the letter D from Lexie's "bandana," turning it - literally - into a "banana." Worse yet, an extra S has transformed the "desert" into a giant "dessert." Lexie must track down this scoundrel and "bring him to justice." Jessie Hartland's artwork is playful and bright, and she does a valiant job integrating the wacky wordplay with the plot. This isn't an edge-of-your-seat western, but the book is packed with puns, twists of words and vintage cowboy dialect kids will enjoy imitating. A similar rascal is at work in Bill Richardson's "The Alphabet Thief." This longnosed, masked bandit is on a nefarious mission, starting with the letter A. Following the logic of "Lexie," when a letter, like B, is stolen, "bowls" become "owls," "brats" are turned into "rats," and a dog named "Bill" becomes "ill." The story is told in brisk, rhyming stanzas, by a determined, redheaded sleuth. The wordplay is fun - a "chair" becomes "hair," a "fox" turns into an "ox" - though some examples are a visual stretch. Throughout, Roxanna Bikadoroff's lively spot illustrations deftly keep pace as the altered words pile up. In the end, the redhead prevails, with a unique weapon; a Y-shaped slingshot that fires Z's. Don't worry, there is no bloodshed. Just swift and punitive sleep. In Ivan Brunetti's "Wordplay," a schoolteacher assigns her class a homework assignment: to create a list of compound words. Somebody suggests "homesick," and a picture shows a sad-faced house with a thermometer in its mouth. "Housefly" is seen as a house with wings. One student, fittingly named Annemarie, becomes obsessed. She looks for compound words everywhere around her, even where they don't exist. Brunetti's use of simple, sequential cartoons turns this basic exercise into a brief, but delightful story. Each of these books, though different in style and sensibility, is designed to spark a curiosity in language. They prove that whether it's chasing after a riddle, stealing alphabet letters or defining an opposite, the picture book is an ideal stage for the play of words. ? JON AGEE is the author and illustrator of many picture books, including "Milo's Hat Trick" and "Terrific," which will both be reissued in September.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 30, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
The Alphabet Thief was daring and smart. So begins this whimsical rhyming book about a stealthy bandit who steals letter after letter, from A to Z. All over the world her crime spree causes havoc, as she turns boats into bots, bowls into owls, a chair into hair. It's up to the young, ponytailed, and bespectacled narrator to save the day just before the Alphabet Thief absconds with the Y's and Z's. This slim book features one letter per page with occasional breaks to lament the unstoppable robber. The editorial-cartoonlike ink-and-watercolor illustrations provide visual context and humor. The presence of sophisticated vocabulary and concepts fishermen's pikes that turn into pies, a pirate that becomes irate, a quark that becomes an ark make this a book for sharing, rather than independent reading. Occasionally the confining rhyme scheme seems forced, and purloined letters inexplicably reappear, but overall the text will inspire a passion for humorous wordplay. A similar conceit appears in Michaël Escoffier's Take Away the A (2014), which will pair well for the younger set.--Seto Forrester, Amy Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Richardson and Bikadoroff reveal just how important letters are as the eponymous Alphabet Thief-who looks one part witch, one part rogue musketeer-goes on a crime spree, stealing one letter at a time. The result: madcap linguistic chaos, which Richardson describes with glee in rhymes that never take a false step: "The Alphabet Thief stole all of the I's./ The maid was made mad in a glance./ And artists at easels would rather have measles./ Than find that their paints were now pants." Bikadoroff's airy ink-and-watercolor portraits are just as much fun, and the book's small trim size and big sense of fun make it a smart pick for language lovers of any age. Ages 5-9. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-The Alphabet Thief steals each letter of the alphabet, creating linguistic chaos. Can she be stopped? Not until she steals A's through Z's in the most predictable order. This clever story shows readers the result of verbal irony in its images again and again. Playful illustrations provide concrete examples, portraying baths as bats, poets as pets, horses as hoses, squashes as sashes, and many other silly transmutations. As a read-aloud, this rhyming tale is bound to lead to creative conversation about the textual and illustrative depictions of odd things left in odd situations as letters disappear from their words. Readers may be tempted to try their own letter thieving, dropping letters from words to make other recognizable words. VERDICT Sure to delight wordsmiths of all ages. A fun read-aloud that lends itself to curricular application.-Lindsay Persohn, University of South Florida, Tampa © Copyright 2017. 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.
