Alas, toilet humor always seems to lure kids in, whether the story warrants it or not (Marty’s is the latter).
Walter the Farting Dog has new company in Marty, a cat with star potential.
Mary Jane’s new cat is gassy (to put it mildly), but she loves him just the same. When a voice tutor visits, the whole family comes to recognize his true gift amid all the odor: After eating some grapes, French cheese and the “hand-painted sack” they came in, Marty plays “Au Clair de Lune” with his tush. Some experimentation follows. “First French! Now Italian! This testing reveals, / Marty’s audio output is inspired by his meals!” Marty stuns the crowd at the Gala Pet Show with fireworks (after eating franks and beans) before tooting “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” His fame established, Marty sets off on a world tour. While Ward would like children to believe that their pets’ flatulence is a gold mine waiting to be discovered, not many parents are likely to find even Marty to be worth much. Oddly divided verses and stumbling scansion make reading this aloud a bit of a challenge, and for once, Kellogg’s illustrations are not enough to save the tale. Marty’s wide-open green eyes alternate between giving him an always-surprised expression and just looking creepy, and his gas is shown as swooshes of color (and sometimes words) coming from his rear end.
Alas, toilet humor always seems to lure kids in, whether the story warrants it or not (Marty’s is the latter). (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-3901-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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