A dozen years since they first made an appearance, and not a day older or wiser, Fleming’s three young cottontails return to bedevil Mr. McGreely (Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!, 2002, etc.).
The bunnies still have a few tricks up their sleeves to get under Mr. McGreely’s skin. Where once they ate his garden to the ground, now they are doing their unintended best to undermine his vacation, one he has taken expressly to get away from the “floppyeared, pufftailed twitchwhiskers.” They manage to stow away in his car, then happily join him on his beach towel. Mr. McGreely storms off to do some shell collecting (“No bunny—nohow, noway—is sharing my fun day”). He returns with paltry fragments that he is very proud of, only to find that the bunnies have found a trove of spectacular shells. His kite flies for two seconds—again, he’s very proud—while the bunnies paraglide with their kite, and so on. In the end, there is a message about teamwork, which is not to be ignored, but it is Fleming’s text that raises the bar of joy to such heights, with her quirky internal rhymes—“Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, grab!…Tippy-nab”—and descriptive language. Karas invests each character with acres of personality. It’s a happy reunion with the bunnies for children, if a dubious one for Mr. McGreely. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4169-5403-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 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
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
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