Anti-book books are tricky, and this one doesn’t quite pull it off.
A grouchy reader finally finds an appealing topic.
“I do not like stories about waking up in the morning,” begins the light-skinned, dark-haired grump. Once off to school, the child continues to enumerate every single kind of disliked story on the left side of the double-page spreads while the right-hand page shows the family’s cat having parallel experiences: upsetting a fruit cart when the child expresses disdain for stories about fruit, climbing a tree when the kid says, “I do not like stories about deep dark forests,” and reentering the apartment through a window as the child reviles “stories about going home.” Comic-book–style panels divide the action while the muted, blue-dominated palette and simple lines of the illustrations match the downcast tone of the story. The only break in the repetitive structure is when the kid says, “I do not like stories about monsters that hide behind closed doors,” and then, after a bewhiskered, spread-spanning “BOO,” says, “Just kidding! That’s no monster. That’s my cat.” The kid only concedes, at the end, the possibility of “lik[ing] a story about a cat.” The story has a pleasant, soothing rhythm, but it never manages to get anywhere interesting. There’s no insight into why the antihero is so pessimistic, and the cat’s side-plot adventures are too mundane to entertain or offer a counternarrative.
Anti-book books are tricky, and this one doesn’t quite pull it off. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77147-378-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
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 stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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