A rhyming invitation for adults and children to read together.
A daughter finishes each one of her father’s sentences as the two pink pigs go through their shared day.
“When I say ‘ready,’ you say ‘go.’ / When I say ‘slower,’ you say ‘no.’ ” Each sentence is illustrated with two vignettes apiece. The first shows the two on their respective bikes (dad’s pulling a basket behind) and then dad’s surprised face and some motion lines and clouds. In the second, readers see dad puffing along, and then his daughter takes his place on his bike, pulling him in the basket. From waking up in the morning, making breakfast, and getting dressed to picnicking, playing, and going through the evening routine, much of what this duo does will be familiar to readers. Coburn’s tweaking of the punctuation in the speech bubbles that reiterate the dialogue within the vignettes adds some nice variety to what could quickly become repetitive. “When I say ‘time to,’ you say ‘dress.’ / When I say ‘this one,’ you say ‘yes’ ” first shows the dad holding up a pair of jeans and the girl sticking out her tongue in protest: “dress!” The second shows dad rooting around in her drawer while she shyly peeks around the dresser: “dress?” And her enthusiastic “yes” on the opposite page is accompanied by some accessorizing of the white, pleated dress. White backgrounds keep the focus on the anthropomorphic porcine pair and the joy they feel in spending time together.
A rhyming invitation for adults and children to read together. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0174-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
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