Listeners who enjoy old-fashioned animal stories will appreciate Watts’ gentle, whimsical tone, pastoral setting and sweet...
A small group of anthropomorphized woodland creatures have a mild adventure and make a new friend (sort of) in this low-key tale.
Watts’ delicate illustrations offer glimpses of cozy burrows, cold, snowy vistas and portraits of charming creatures. Executed in what appears to be pen and colored pencil, they provide plenty to look at, including a variety of actions and characters not mentioned in the text. In one corner of a double-page spread, a small hedgehog runs away clutching a squash. On a different spread, two hedgehogs and three bunnies build a snowman while a mouse in a red hat skis by. Unfortunately, young listeners will likely feel that Watts’ narrative is not nearly as engaging as her pictures. The long, rambling story takes place over several seasons. The central section follows willful Little Jack Rabbit as he and two friends get stuck outside overnight by a snowstorm. The animals survive because the whistling wind blows down a scarecrow, and his coat covers them, keeping them warm. How intentional the scarecrow’s actions are is open to interpretation, though the final page implies that he is alive, alert and able to experience emotions.
Listeners who enjoy old-fashioned animal stories will appreciate Watts’ gentle, whimsical tone, pastoral setting and sweet conclusion, but for many, time spent poring over the pictures will be more rewarding—and enjoyable. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4117-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
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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