Horn Book (Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2002)

After Goldie Locks gets chicken pox, she can't play with her visitors, who include Henny Penny, Bo Peep, and Red Riding Hood. Meanwhile, itchy Goldie's attention-starved brother exploits her misery. The book lacks focus: neither the nursery-rhyme parody nor the sibling-rivalry story ultimately satisfies. But the satirical, 1950s-style illustrations cleverly straddle the line between the sweet and the grotesque.

Kirkus Reviews

Goldie Locks has contracted chicken pox from an unknown source, although her mom asks Mrs. Bear if Baby Bear shows any signs of the disease. While she's at it, she also apologizes for the chair her daughter broke. Goldie's spots start out small in number and size, but are soon larger and more numerous. And of course they itch like mad. Henny Penny, Bo Peep, and Little Red Riding Hood all make appearances to distract Goldie. The doctor gives a clear-cut diagnosis and suggests a cool bath and lots of sweet treats, but he's a mouse so one might doubt his advice. Little Brother is even more bothersome than the spots and itch. Jealous of all the attention she's receiving, he tries to connect the dots on Goldie's face, makes fun of the way she looks, and is generally obnoxious. Of course, his turn comes too. Dealey has chosen to tell the story in verse, but the verse is amateurish, with too many awkward lines, at least one passage that is completely lacking rhythm and stocked with bland rhymes and several non -rhymes, like "dots/pox" and "six/itched." Straightforward, breezy prose might have served this slight tale better. Wakiyama's ( Too Big , 1998, etc.) illustrations are much more successful. They are rendered brightly, in oil, with red the predominating color. The style might be described as 1950s kitsch. Little Brother looks particularly like the icon for an early fast-food chain. There are cowboy shirts, Formica tables, checkered-tile floors, record players, kidney-shaped coffee tables, and more. Great fun to look at, but the illustrations can't save the mediocre writing. (Picture book. 4-7)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In Dealey's debut, Goldilocks is a mid-century-modern girl, with her beige-blonde hair in pinch-tight braids and red barrettes. She mopes in bed or in her living-room Egg chair, sipping a cold drink and glumly surveying the pink "polka dots" on her rosy skin. Nursery characters like Little Red regret that Goldilocks can't "come to Gram's" with her, while others tell her not to scratch the spots: " 'Leave them be,' agreed Bo Peep,/ Who happened by in search of sheep./ 'That's sound advice for chicken pox./ It doesn't work for wayward flocks.' " Dealey's stilted rhymes hark back to the early years of the baby boom and "Dick and Jane" readers; Goldie endures the taunts of an unsympathetic little brother, while Father (dressed in a smoking jacket or dude-ranch shirt) maintains discipline. Wakiyama (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Too Big!) likewise mimics 1950s picture books in her oversaturated color illustrations, printed on cream-yellow, faux-aged pages. Her work suggests the era of color separations, with fragile paper and opaque orange and turquoise inks. This fond look at old-fashioned fairy tales and family-sitcom dynamics injects wry touches (when Little Red comes by, a wolf peers in the window) that let readers in on the joke. Ages 3-6. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Feb.)

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1-Goldie Locks not only has lots of pink spots, but she also has a thoroughly pesky brother and many visitors, including Henny Penny, Bo Peep, and Jack Be Nimble. While her mouse doctor prescribes cool treats, cool baths, and patience, Little Brother suggests connecting the "dots," calls her a monster and an alien, and boldly boasts of his own immunity, causing poor Goldie to wail, "-how am I supposed to rest/when my brother's such a pest?" However, the obstreperous sibling suffers a fitting (if predictable) fate-some polka dots of his own. The oil illustrations have a decidedly retro feel with furniture, fashions, and fabric patterns of the 1950s. Observant viewers will have fun with the visual references to fairy-tale events. With four to eight lines of verse per page, the rhyming text sometimes strains-"pox" is variously paired with "spots," "squawked," "doc," etc. However, the pacing is lively and both mother and doctor offer sympathy and recommend tried-and-true remedies for this common childhood ailment. This combination of fairy-tale fantasy and domestic realism just might win a smile from young patients and from those adults who can appreciate the nostalgia.-Carol Ann Wilson, Westfield Memorial Library, NJ Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.