Sure to steal readers’ hearts.
A punctilious pig’s job as Cupid goes awry.
Cupig, a rotund porcine hero in heart-adorned undies, loves love. She adores it so much that every year on Valentine’s Day, she takes her trusty bow and arrow and helps spread desire. This year, however, the weather affects her aim. Gray swirls of gusty wind blow her arrows astray, causing her to accidentally hit some familiar, well-established couples. “Now Peanut Butter stopped loving Jelly / and fell in love with something smelly.” (The new pair is Peanut Butter and Anchovies.) Poor Jelly is tipped over, leaving a smudge shaped like a broken heart on the counter. “Needle and Thread had been a great team; / now they’re falling apart at the seams.” (Needle has fallen in love with a haystack; Thread is understandably unraveled.) Pair after pair are broken up and matched with new partners. Butterfly falls out of love with the sky and in love with a horse, and Paper’s affections shift from Pen to a polar bear; love knows no bounds. After some reflection, however, Cupig realizes her mistakes and goes off to set things right. Some readers may be slightly uneasy with the implication that romance should blossom only between couples who seem “right” for each other, but it’s mostly just a silly story of classic pairs reuniting. Tattersfield keeps a jaunty pace, and Sayegh’s smiling (and distraught) inanimate objects are a delight.
Sure to steal readers’ hearts. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780593623107
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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 stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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