A Review of Holiday House, Part II

     I have selected 3 books published by Holiday House, Inc. from my local library.  All three are fiction chapter books.  The second book I am reviewing is WUV BUNNIES FROM OUTERS PACE- A Graphic Novel by David Elliott and illustrated by Ethan Long.
    
     Before I begin, I'd like to mention that lately I've been experimenting with peanut butter and jelly spaghetti.  Yes.  Boil some sweet potato pasta (10 min), drain.  Add a tablespoon of peanut butter and your favorite jelly(preserves for me).  Microwave for 10 seconds. Voila!  It's not delightful, but it's one of the many wacky things I do.

     Now, about WUV BUNNIES FROM OUTERS PACE.  The first page immediately held me captive.  I wanted to know more.  Space bunnies traveling in a spaceship that is the replica of a carrot?  It even smells like a carrot.  Now, that's great.



Pub Date: June 1st, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-8234-1902-9

Page count: 112pp

Publisher: Holiday House

Positives:
     The wacky illustrations are well done.  They are in black and white.  They are done so that the reader feels as though he's getting a window glimpse into  Hercules Smith's (mc) world.  Cartoony pictures go well with a goofy story.  The story had me chuckling every other page. The jokes had me moaning and groaning.  There are some silly riddles, too.  Fun reading for boys ages 7-9. 
    
Negatives: 
     None.  The graphics are similar to that of Captain Underpants - a book that boys love and parents like to censor due to the "disgusting" humor*.  WUB BUNNIES has no dirty underpants.  It is good clean comedic writing. 

Publishing Errors:
I didn't like that the binding seemed to chop off some of the illustrations. (Pages 6-7 and 26-27 are examples of some of the worst.) This hurt the reader’s viewing pleasure.

Reviews:

Children's Literature

…reminiscent of the "Captain Underpants" ... The short chapters with more pictures than words are ideal to draw in the reluctant reader, as are the last two pages filled with more jokes to share. The book and the jokes are full of groaners for adults but are perfect for their target age group... Reviewer: Chris Newsham

School Library Journal

… an overabundance of groan-inducing jokes… Additional attempts at quirkiness, such as having one chapter written in the Wuv Bunny language "prin1Xtsh" and another solely composed of "HAs!" come off as filler. The use of footnotes as glib asides, the standard cartoon artwork, and even the sense of awareness and revelry at how bad the jokes are show that there is nothing new here.-Joanna K. Fabicon, Los Angeles Public Library

Kirkus Reviews

…Elliott and Long milk this premise for all it's worth, dishing up a Captain Underpants-style mix of text and wild cartoons-the former well-stocked with authorial asides... this is all perfectly pitched to its audience and guaranteed to garner groans from the grown-ups.

* toilet comments, poor manners, and rudeness.