A delightful domestic debacle with pictures to pore over and many bunnies to count.
A two-for-the-price-of-one sale at the pet store challenges a resourceful family to cope with the inevitable consequences.
Hardly have Owen, Zoey, and their dad had time to feel amazed before their two new rabbits have turned into 210, nibbling on the furniture and leaving “little chocolate eggs” all over. It’s time for a grand, if occasionally ruthless, giveaway—but after leaving one with a passing juggler, slipping two into an unsuspecting neighbor’s mail slot, dropping three into the instrument case of a distracted street musician, and so on up to tying the last 20 to balloons, the children are dismayed to discover that there are none left. And so it’s back to the pet store…just in time to take advantage of a two-for-one sale on ferrets! Aside from looking for a message, if any, buried in the silliness, the chief fun of this Italian import will be counting the orange bunnies in Benetti’s duotone illustrations—they’re all there, each individually drawn and engaged, singly or in bunches, in tomfoolery. Human figures, rendered in grayscale, are mostly light-skinned, but there are also a few who are darker-complexioned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A delightful domestic debacle with pictures to pore over and many bunnies to count. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63655-054-1
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Red Comet Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
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
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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