Reviews
SLJ Review of Fox & Chick: The Quiet Boat Ride and Other Stories
Fox and Chick are back in another endearing tale of friendship and adventure. Chick is the dynamo of the pair, quick to show emotion and blessed with a vivid imagination and sense of whimsy. Fox, on the other hand, is the anchor of the pair and serves as the voice of reason and logic.… View →
Booklist Review of Lowriders Blast from the Past
Elirio, El Chavo, and Lupe have flown to space and ventured to the underworld in their ingenious lowrider, but how did they first meet? This installment in Camper and Raúl the Third’s effervescent, street art-inspired series reveals the fortuitous occasion of the car show at which they… View →
SLJ Review of Fox & Chick: The Party and Other Stories
This easy reader–style picture book is actually three stories in one and stars two lovable and very different best friends. In “The Party,” Fox is trying to read while Chick repeatedly interrupts him and requests to use his bathroom, where he proceeds to throw a raucous shindig with some View →
Booklist Review of Fox & Chick: The Party and Other Stories
Ruzzier kicks off a new picture-book series with this charmer, blending graphic-novel and early-reader conventions for young readers not quite ready to tackle chapter books. Adopting an odd-couple formula, the book’s three short stories follow practical Fox and unpredictable Chick—think… View →
Booklist Review of A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum...
Young Henry, the protagonist from The Truth about My Unbelievable Summer (2016) and several earlier adventures, arrives late for his class field trip to the museum and decides to catch up by moving quickly through the exhibits. Prompted by his teacher, Henry later recounts being charged… View →
SLJ Review of A Funny Thing Happened at the Museum...
The protagonist from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School is back in a new adventure, this time at a museum. Young Henry works his way through the museum, trying to rejoin his classmates, creating havoc all along the way. While running from a herd of buffalo, he knocks down a… View →
Booklist Review of Mighty, Mighty Construction Site
Here is the rock-pounding, deep-digging sequel to the highly acclaimed Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site (2011). The five truck buddies (Crane Truck, Dump Truck, Cement Mixer, Bulldozer, and Excavator) wake up in the construction site. Newly delivered blueprints tell them they’re… View →
SLJ Review of Mighty, Mighty Construction Site
In this follow-up to the wildly popular Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, the trucks are back, working together to get the job done. This task is a bit too big for the old crew, though, and some new friends make an appearance, including a skid steer loader, a backhoe, a flatbed, a… View →
SLJ Review of Lowriders to the Center of the Earth
Lupe, Elirio, and Flapjack—an impala, a mosquito, and an octopus—work in a garage, repairing and detailing cars. When they discover their cat, Genie, is missing, they follow his tracks to a corn maze that turns out to be a trap used by the Aztec god Mictlantecuhtli to steal the skeletons View →
Booklist Review of Lowriders to the Center of the Earth
After winning the contest and raising enough money to open their own garage in Lowriders in Space (2014), Lupe Impala, El Chavo Flapjack, and Elirio Malaria are happily working on cars all day. But when an earthquake strikes and their beloved gatito, Genie, goes missing, they load up… View →
Booklist Review of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School...
The young boy from I Didn’t Do My Homework Because . . . (2014) is back with an outlandish saga of why he is late for school. First he observed giant ants stealing his breakfast. Arriving at the bus stop, 10 “evil ninjas” blocked his way. His attempts to get to school on time were… View →
Booklist Review of I Didn’t Do My Homework Because…
A teacher asks her student why he did not do his homework, and he offers her enough excuses to fill a book, varying from the possibly plausible (“My sister’s rabbit chewed up all my pencils and workbooks”) to the highly unlikely (“I gave my pencils to Robin Hood”) to the… View →