With expert comic timing, Smith sets vulpine Foxy DuBois up for a tasty turnabout after a mouthwatering guest comes to visit. When a small polka-dot egg appears on her doorstep, Foxy invites him in (“for a BITE to eat”) and then dashes off to the kitchen to contemplate the culinary possibilities. But why settle for just a snack? After whipping up a massive meal of fattening desserts (“Egg wobbled with excitement”) Foxy beds Egg down, then retires to a night of eggy dreams in anticipation of a yummy breakfast. Breezily leaving it to viewers to pick up on the absurdity of a faceless Egg capable of happily chatting and chowing down with his salivating hostess, the author/illustrator adds a pinch of melodrama by staging the tête-à-tête in a Victorian-style house stocked with poultry-themed knickknacks, embellishes Foxy’s dreamscape with a leggy feathered chorus line and finally dishes up a double whammy the following morning in the form of a hugely swollen Egg that hatches out—well, not quite the entrée Foxy had in mind. The photo-collaged illustrations will remind many of Lauren Child, but the humor is distinct, enhanced by a cinematic introduction that reveals that the part of Egg is played by newcomer Edward L’Oeuf, with Vivien Vixen as Foxy DuBois. Delicious, for all that it’s something of a literary hors d’oeuvre. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2330-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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