Good for sharing one on one, this is a pleasant bedtime story for those who don’t already have enough.
Another riff on Goodnight Moon, this one is set in a forest.
The opening rhyme sets the scene. “Good morning, forest. / Rise and shine! / Good morning, maple, / Oak and pine.” The text welcomes, in turn, an assemblage of forest flora, fauna, and landscape elements to a new day: deer, bird, stream, flowers, cricket, porcupine, ferns, turtle, and skunk. The creatures play until the end of day, when a hush falls over the forest and it’s time to sleep. The illustrations are eye-catching, with darkly saturated colors applied in painterly strokes that extend off of the page. The images appear as if shellacked or polished on the glossy paper, and they gently exaggerate the features of the animals; all have wide, pop eyes (even the cricket), and the porcupine’s quills and beaver’s buck teeth are humorously hyperbolic. The ending, which features an adult and child inside a lit tent reading a book, is a nice touch. “Time to sleep! / All creatures do. / Good night, forest. / Good night, you.” However, although all the ingredients work well enough together, there is little about the book that helps it to rise above the rest and should be considered only in situations where there is an ache for another bedtime book.
Good for sharing one on one, this is a pleasant bedtime story for those who don’t already have enough. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58536-388-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
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
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
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