A clever, absurdist tale laced with strong takeaways.
What happens when unruly children show up on an island full of walruses whose only answer to questions is “yes”?
“On our island, every simple question had just one simple answer: Yes.” Usually, this works out well. Our narrator—a walrus wearing a pink cap—eagerly says yes to an offer of a sprinkled, frosted doughnut from a vendor. And yes is the perfect response if someone asks if you want birthday cake or to stay up late. But if someone asks you to don an itchy shirt, it doesn’t work out quite so well. Enter the Kid, a tan-skinned child who takes advantage of the walruses’ language deficit. The Kid interrupts a game of Walrus Ball, amasses all the island’s doughnuts, and uses the narrator’s toothbrush to splatter paint all over a cat. When asked to stop, the Kid responds, “No.” The narrator tries to say “no” when the Kid insists upon a piggyback ride but only manages sounds such as “niff” and “nerp”—wonderfully illustrated through the creative use of fonts. Soon, more young miscreants arrive, wreaking havoc. Funny, accessible Claymation-inspired art depicts the walruses’ difficult mastery of pronouncing the word no—a clear metaphor for the challenges of standing up for oneself. Before this didactic yet lighthearted tale comes to a close, the characters all learn how “yes” and “no” can work in partnership. Human characters vary in skin tone.
A clever, absurdist tale laced with strong takeaways. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780735272415
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
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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