A real-life, triumphant horse story worth telling to children, but this attempt falls a bit flat.
A picture-book adaptation of Letts’ nonfiction bestseller, The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired a Nation (2012).
Snowman's story is well known: Saved from a slaughterhouse at the last minute when horse-riding instructor Harry de Leyer purchased him for $80, the gaunt, bedraggled horse didn't fit in at the school for girls where de Leyer taught. But after being sold to a boy living several miles away, the horse repeatedly jumped tall pasture fences to return to what he thought of as home. De Leyer bought him back and trained him; within two years, Snowman was a show-jumping champion. This picture book will be equally appealing to children and adults. Harren's action-packed illustrations, some based on iconic photographs of Snowman, serve it well. However, presumably in an effort to make the story more child-friendly, Letts moves the point of view from de Leyer to his daughter Harriet then back again to de Leyer, a narrative technique that feels clumsy. The book contains some factual inaccuracies: Snowman is described as “old”; the kill man, not de Leyer, brings the horse home to the farm; and de Leyer and his wife are shown as having three children (they had eight). De Leyer and his family are White, as are most background characters. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A real-life, triumphant horse story worth telling to children, but this attempt falls a bit flat. (Nonfiction picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-17385-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader!
Fun with friends makes for a great day.
Norbit, a salmon-colored worm with a pink kerchief, joyfully greets the day and everyone he encounters. “Hello, friends! It’s time for fun with the sun! Let’s play!” He and his menagerie of forest pals—including the sun, who grows limbs and descends from the sky—exuberantly engage in various forms of physical activity such as jumping, going down a slide, spinning around, and watching the clouds go by. Young readers will readily relate, as these are games that most children are familiar with. As day turns to night, Norbit says farewell to Sun and welcomes Moon with an invitation to continue the fun. Watkins has created a vivid world of movement and merriment. Her illustrations feature bright bursts of color that match the energy of the text, with most sentences ending in an exclamation point. The author/illustrator incorporates many elements that make for an ideal early-reading experience (despite the use of a contraction or two): art free from clutter, text consisting of words with only one or two syllables, and repetition and recurring bits, such as a continued game of hide-and-seek with Sun. Inspired by never-before-seen sketches from the Dr. Seuss Collection archives at the University of California San Diego, this is the first title for Seuss Studios, a new imprint for original stories from “emerging authors and illustrators” who “honor Seuss’s hallmark spirit of creativity and imagination.”
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader! (author's note) (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593646212
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Seuss Studios
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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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