  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 12/15/2012 Rosie finds a discarded ice-pop stick and adds it to the others collected in her cigar box. Drawn with expressive little faces, the sticks discuss what they can be without their ice pops. Maybe a horse, muses the new stick. Meanwhile, Rosie overhears her parents say that they can’t pay their bills. Longing to help, she falls asleep and dreams of Stickerino, a flying, talking horse that gallops out of the cigar box and takes her on a treasure hunt. The next morning, Rosie surprises her dad with a chest full of gold. While the story has all the improbability of a child’s own fantasy, the telling is lively, and the artwork is captivating. When the clock strikes midnight and rises into the air carrying Rosie on its back, the book soars into realms of imagination and hope. Blake’s expressive ink drawings with watercolor washes depict, with equal conviction, parents discussing the family’s troubles, Stickerino soaring over distant lands, and pirates lining up at an ice-cream cart. A playful, picture-book confection for imaginative children. - Copyright 2012 Booklist. School Library Journal - 02/01/2013 PreS-Gr 2—Rosie collects discarded ice-pop sticks and places them carefully in her cigar box. When the lid closes on them, they become animated and wish they could become a horse. At bedtime, Rosie takes them out to play, all the while wishing she could find a way to help her parents pay their bills. Instead she finds herself making a galloping horse out of the sticks and falls off to sleep. In her dreams she and a magical stick horse go off in search of a treasure. They finally find a group of pirates playing with their ill-gotten gains, and she and Stickerino bamboozle the thieves and make off with the plunder. When they return, a treasure chest of gold coins awaits Dad at the breakfast table. Hoban makes use of magical realism to create a story in which the ordinary and the extraordinary exist side by side. Rosie is a fine heroine intent only on helping her parents and her cigar-box sticks are eager for adventure. In the end, this is a satisfying partnership for all concerned. Blake's beguiling art has life and movement on every page and invites children to believe that they, too, are on a magical journey where anything can happen.—Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA - Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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