A wildly original tale with the buddy-based charm of Frog and Toad but imbued with a wacky energy all its own.
The sweet and strange intersect in these comics about two pals with a lot on their minds.
The premise is simple: In this world, everyone sports something on their head. Our protagonists are best friends Cabin Head and Tree Head (vaguely humanoid creatures with little people inhabiting the worlds atop their noggins). Six main stories (with three bonus tales) take this concept and run higgledy-piggledy with it. Readers are treated to tales of terrible “leafcuts” (Garden Head attempts to give Tree Head a new ’do, with hilarious results), treasure hunts with self-made maps, and even a wildly out-of-this-world adventure that reveals that the Earth itself is on someone’s head. Kids will revel in locating and naming all the different “heads” in Campbell’s beautiful watercolor-rendered scenes, even as they chuckle over his delightfully absurd dialogue (“I feel a case of the HELLOS coming on.” “Uh-oh. The HELLOS are nothing to be trifled with”). The primary lures are the humor, the nutty concept, and the detailed depictions of a cheerfully surreal world where everything from clouds to mountain is gently anthropomorphized, but the heartfelt friendship between the two heroes is what will have children and parents coming back again and again.
A wildly original tale with the buddy-based charm of Frog and Toad but imbued with a wacky energy all its own. (Graphic fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781774885055
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that.
Beatrice Zinker is a kinder, gentler Judy Moody.
Beatrice doesn’t want to be fit in a box. Her first word was “WOW,” not “Mom.” She does her best thinking upside down and prefers to dress like a ninja. Like Judy Moody, she has patient parents and a somewhat annoying younger brother. (She also has a perfectly ordinary older sister.) Beatrice spends all summer planning a top-secret spy operation complete with secret codes and a secret language (pig Latin). But on the first day of third grade, her best friend, Lenny (short for Eleanor), shows up in a dress, with a new friend who wants to play veterinarian at recess. Beatrice, essentially a kind if somewhat quirky kid, struggles to see the upside of the situation and ends up with two friends instead of one. Line drawings on almost every spread add to the humor and make the book accessible to readers who might otherwise balk at its 160 pages. Thankfully, the rhymes in the text do not continue past the first chapter. Children will enjoy the frequent puns and Beatrice’s preference for climbing trees and hanging upside down. The story drifts dangerously close to pedantry when Beatrice asks for advice from a grandmotherly neighbor but is saved by likable characters and upside-down cake. Beatrice seems to be white; Lenny’s surname, Santos, suggests that she may be Latina; their school is a diverse one.
A kind child in a book for middle-grade readers? There’s no downside to that. (Fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-6738-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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