Not a tall tale at all but a captivating bit of history.
Stories of animal feats that sound as if they can’t possibly be true are always intriguing, and this tale is one that bears repeating.
While several children’s books have been written about the giraffe who sailed across the Mediterranean from Egypt and then walked from Marseilles to Paris, arriving in 1827 after three years, this version is written for a slightly younger age group than the others. In spite of limited details, the telling is lively and largely accords with the known facts. The pasha of Egypt charges his servant Atir, a young man who accompanies the giraffe and lives with her until her death in 1845, with delivering the unusual living present to King Charles X of France. The giraffe inspires all sorts of fashions, biscuits, topiary hedges and hairdos. The author’s note provides background and notes that the building, La Rotunde, constructed to house Zeraffa (in other accounts often called Belle) still exists. Unfortunately, there are no source notes. Whether Louise Marie Thérèse, the king’s granddaughter, really crept out each night to stand with Zeraffa and Atir, staring toward the African continent, is probably a matter of poetic license. The detail-filled paintings, bursting with boats on the Nile, French crowds and the giraffe’s accessories, will draw all eyes during group or individual readings.
Not a tall tale at all but a captivating bit of history. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-84780-344-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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