A tongue-in-cheek reminder that good food doesn’t have to come in a box, jar or plastic bag.
Would a supermarket catering to animals stock pizza? Ice cream? Sugary snacks?
Definitely not, at least according to this import. Instead, the snail is going to opt for lettuce, kale and herbs, the goat for turnips and gourds, the cat for milk (“the kind with the double cream”), and the seals for fresh mackerel and canned sardines. A three-for-two sale on crumbs draws ants and birds, the gibbons will go for grubs, and for bee customers, the whole frozen-food section (“never very popular”) has been replaced by a meadow. Though most of the stock is neatly stacked on shelves or in shopping carts in the painterly illustrations, bears snack on pawsful of blueberries, a mongoose steals eggs, and there are other signs of lively disorder. Mulazzani dresses her thickly brushed animals in human clothes and stands them up on hind legs, but they’re still recognizable enough to match, in a closing visual quiz, with arrays of preferred edibles—including, perhaps as a concession to human viewers, fruit ices and minipizzas—spread out on a table. Packaged and processed goods? Still in evidence. Nonetheless, the overall emphasis on fresh fruits and veggies sends a salutary message to young consumers.
A tongue-in-cheek reminder that good food doesn’t have to come in a box, jar or plastic bag. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5448-3
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
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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