Wondering how this exhilarating disaster can possibly fulfill Harold’s birthday wish keeps readers puzzling right up until...
A streaming parade of wild animals pours into Harold Snipperpot’s posh home, wrecking the place but ultimately delivering the birthday party the boy’s always wanted in this French import.
Harold Snipperpot’s never had a birthday party because his parents abhor parties (and hugs and kisses, for that matter), but their anemic, bespectacled son’s excruciating yearning for a real party prompts them to reach out to Mr. Ponzio, the neighborhood problem-solver. Mellow, flat gouache, oil, collage, and wax pencil illustrations describe Harold’s tweedy, polished world while also delivering delightfully expressive portraiture of the animals Mr. Ponzio sends over. Harold’s first-person narration (breathless, conversational, and authentic-sounding thanks to Gauvin’s translation) drives the story, which gains momentum with each page turn. Mr. Ponzio's carousing caravan of creatures will keep readers spellbound as they wreak havoc on the Snipperpots’ well-appointed home. Birds break Harold’s grandmother’s china; turtles chew up the rare-book collection; a giraffe eats the art deco chandelier; an armadillo tries on Harold’s mother’s pearls; monkeys vamp in tulle and silk; a hippo floods the bathroom. The uptight, neurasthenic Snipperpots present white while burly Mr. Ponzio presents black, with a large Afro and flamboyant garb. Mr. Ponzio appears only peripherally and doesn’t say much, and while extremely alluring, he is also sadly reminiscent of the “magical negro” stock character whose unexplained mystic powers have helped whites in their journeys for too long.
Wondering how this exhilarating disaster can possibly fulfill Harold’s birthday wish keeps readers puzzling right up until the culmination. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-249882-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
Only for dedicated fans of the series.
When a kid gets the part of the ninja master in the school play, it finally seems to be the right time to tackle the closet monster.
“I spot my monster right away. / He’s practicing his ROAR. / He almost scares me half to death, / but I won’t be scared anymore!” The monster is a large, fluffy poison-green beast with blue hands and feet and face and a fluffy blue-and-green–striped tail. The kid employs a “bag of tricks” to try to catch the monster: in it are a giant wind-up shark, two cans of silly string, and an elaborate cage-and-robot trap. This last works, but with an unexpected result: the monster looks sad. Turns out he was only scaring the boy to wake him up so they could be friends. The monster greets the boy in the usual monster way: he “rips a massive FART!!” that smells like strawberries and lime, and then they go to the monster’s house to meet his parents and play. The final two spreads show the duo getting ready for bed, which is a rather anticlimactic end to what has otherwise been a rambunctious tale. Elkerton’s bright illustrations have a TV-cartoon aesthetic, and his playful beast is never scary. The narrator is depicted with black eyes and hair and pale skin. Wallace’s limping verses are uninspired at best, and the scansion and meter are frequently off.
Only for dedicated fans of the series. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4894-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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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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