In this fresh, but odd spin on pen pals, Nancy is excited that her pen pal in Florida is coming to visit; from their exchange of letters, Ally seems almost like a sister. When Ally steps off the plane, only the readers will be surprised, unlike Nancy or her parents, that Ally is really an alligator (despite the tip-off on the cover). On the way home, they stop for pizza and Ally eats nine Spicy Shrimp pizzas. Back home, Nancy shows Ally all her treasures, while Ally shows her the photo album she brought. Nancy plays her favorite songs; Ally teaches her the Swamp Stomp and Crazy Creek Creep. They shop (buying matching pink feather boas), go to the swimming pool, ballet class, rollerskating, the beach and make friendship bracelets. Coy details in the colorful illustrations add understated humor (e.g., Ally in her matching red bathing suit and pink ballet outfit). The underlying sentiment is expressed in the last sentence: “Sisters are together even when they’re apart.” It’s puzzling, however, that Ally is the only nonhuman in the whole story and why would people think she and Nancy are sisters unless being an alligator is supposed to stand in for being different. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0643-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2006
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BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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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