Books by Rick Walton and Complete Book Reviews
Rick Walton, Author, Greg Hally, Illustrator Gibbs Smith Publishers $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-87905-652-0
A good idea never quite gets off the ground in this outing, in which compound words are split for comic surprises. On page one, for example, a picture of a spiraling oxtail is captioned, ``Once there was a bull...''; turn the page, and the tail...
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Rick Walton, Author, Ana Lopez-Escriva, Illustrator , illus. by Ana López-Escrivá. Putnam $13.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-23229-9
Forget footprint diagrams and perfect aerobic routines. In this stress-busting book of dance moves, Walton (That's My Dog!
reviewed above) and Spanish artist López-Escrivá recommend imitating nature. They also find cathartic ways...
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Rick Walton, illus. by Wes Hargis. Bloomsbury, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-59990-560-0
Civics need not be a snooze, as Walton (Baby’s First Year) and Hargis (When I Grow Up) prove. Their collaboration opens with a declaration of independence by a curly-haired narrator who’s consumed by revolutionary fervor thanks to her annoying...
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Rick Walton, illus. by Nathan Hale. Feiwel and Friends, $14.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-312-55366-1
Walton (Baby’s First Year!) and Hale (Animal House) beat Goodnight Goon parodist Michael Rex to a 1939 classic: Ludwig Bemelmans’s Madeline. Playing on the Americanized rhyme between Madeline and Frankenstein, Walton and Hale style themselves as “Lud
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Rick Walton, illus. by Nathan Hale. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-312-55367-8
Walton and Hale, again collaborating under the pen name Ludworst Bemonster, return with a Christmas companion to their 2012 Frankenstein-meets-Madeline mashup, Frankenstein: A Monstrous Parody. Lumpy-headed little Frankenstein can’t wait for Santa’s
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Rick Walton, Author, Henry Cole, Illustrator, Rick Walton, Illustrator Putnam Publishing Group $12.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-23228-2
What are baby animals really saying with the sounds they make? According to Walton (Once There Was a Bull Frog), ""Little snakes say, ""Kissss! Kissss!/ Kisss us on the cheek like thissss!"" And cows are declaring ""Moo-oon! Moo-oon!/ We would like
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Rick Walton, Author, Cynthia Jabar, Illustrator Candlewick Press (MA) $6.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-56402-656-9
A combination of riddles, nursery rhymes, and Trivial Pursuit gives this nifty counting book its special twist,"" said PW, noting that Jabar's ""exuberant"" artwork is ""bound to welcome budding mathematicians to these pages."" Ages 3-up. (Jan.)
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Rick Walton, Author, Cynthia Jabar, Illustrator Candlewick Press (MA) $14.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-56402-062-8
A combination of riddles, nursery rhymes, and Trivial Pursuit gives this nifty counting book its special twist. The challenge to readers is presented early on as ``How many HOW MANYstet s can you guess?'' Each successive spread presents a rhyming...
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Rick Walton, Author, Julia Gorton, Illustrator, Charlotte Doyle, Author , illus. by Julia Gorton. Putnam $9.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-23352-4
Thanks to jaunty typography and a slim vertical format, this book packs a visual wallop. Its basis is a cumulative series of adjectives, all in praise of a pet. "I've got a dog," announces a boy. "A red
dog./ A big
red dog..../ And
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Rick Walton, Author, Arthur Robins, Illustrator , illus. by Arthur Robins. Candlewick $10.99 (56p) ISBN 978-0-7636-1385-3
When first seen against a receding cityscape, Bertie the watchdog appears to possess all the looming menace of a modern-day Cerberus. But as Walton (Bunny Day) dryly explains, "Bertie was called a watchdog because he was about the size of a...
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Rick Walton, Author, Lauren Scheuer, Illustrator, Trula Magruder, Editor American Girl Publishing Inc $7.95 (80p) ISBN 978-1-58485-871-3
Continuing the mini theme, Mini Mysteries: 20 Tricky Tales to Untangle by Rick Walton, illus. by Lauren Scheuer, prompt readers to follow clues in the 20 short mysteries happening at Lincoln Middle School. Perforated flaps at the back of the book
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Rick Walton, illus. by Caroline Jayne Church, Putnam, $15.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-25025-5
Walton and Church encourage readers to think of a new baby's milestones as moments the whole family can celebrate. And indeed, the family depicted here, consisting of two parents and two young siblings, regards every accomplishment by its newest...
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Rick Walton, Author, Jimmy Holder, Illustrator Gibbs Smith Publishers $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-87905-806-7
In this unremarkable but good-humored rewriting of ""The Three Little Pigs,"" three big pigs--Pig, Pigger and Piggest--build correspondingly large castles, all of which are reduced to mudholes when each pig refuses to hand it over to the...
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Rick Walton, Author, Jimmy Holder, Illustrator Gibbs Smith Publishers $15.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-87905-853-1
The creators of Pig, Pigger, Piggest here dish out a kid-tickling serving of humor, illustrating a sequence of punning variations on verb phrases that can all be translated, roughly, to mean ""exit."" This is exactly what the characters (some human,
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Rick Walton, Author, Paige Miglio, Illustrator , illus. by Paige Miglio. HarperTrophy $5.95 (32p) ISBN 978-0-06-443751-6
In this riff on the Mother Goose tale about the old woman in the shoe, a family of 26 bunny children—whose names all begin with a different letter in the alphabet—are used to teach ABCs and 1, 2, 3s. "The artwork is chock-full of...
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