The Doctor Dolittle premise and kid-friendly setting don’t make up for pacing, plot, and writing weaknesses.
A girl who can talk to animals helps a lonely new arrival at the zoo.
Zoe Parker lives at her great-uncle’s Rescue Zoo, where her veterinarian mother doctors the animals that Great-Uncle Horace saves from bad situations the world over. But Zoe has a secret—ever since her sixth birthday, she’s been able to communicate with animals. The zoo’s run by Mr. Pinch (“If you ask me, this zoo needs more rules and less fun”). One third of the way in, the main plot finally starts with a rescued lion cub’s arrival. But the starving lion cub refuses to eat; Rory, as the Kenyan lion calls himself, is too sad and lonely from missing his family. Zoe chats with the zoo’s other lion—grumpy, anti-social Leonard—and learns that he’s pretty lonely too. Guessing that the two of them can solve each other’s loneliness, she persuades her mother to put them in adjacent enclosures. When controlling Mr. Pinch learns of this, he interferes to spite Zoe—an unlikely move. Zoe’s talent is never explained, and Cobb is overreliant on exclamation points to engage her readers. Williams depicts the human characters as white in her grayscale vignettes, often poorly reproduced. Kids wanting more Rescue Zoo stories need not wait: The Puzzled Penguin will be simultaneously released.
The Doctor Dolittle premise and kid-friendly setting don’t make up for pacing, plot, and writing weaknesses. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: May 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-84220-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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