With intriguing but somewhat clunky text and strong illustrations, this story could easily captivate some young readers, to...
A wolf and a rabbit stumble their way through friendship in the English translation of a French story.
Tom the rabbit and Wolfy the wolf become friends despite their relative positions on the food chain, but that friendship becomes threatened after a game of “Who’s-afraid-of-the-big-bad-wolf” goes a little too far. But when Wolfy becomes victimized by a pack of strange wolves, he rushes back to Tom, who decides to welcome back the chastened predator. The story makes some sense on a first read but raises unanswered questions. Does Wolfy have parents? Why does a game they play often inexplicably terrify the rabbit one day? Why does a pack of long-eared wolves think that another long-eared wolf is a rabbit? The illustrations are bold and vibrant, with a startling use of bright colors, and the animals are drawn in an appealingly childlike, cuddly fashion. The message is hard to pin down, but the story is more interesting without one. One moral might be that empathy grows from a common fear. Without a moral the story seems to say that relationships across power dynamics are confusing, awkward, and difficult to understand, which is true enough.
With intriguing but somewhat clunky text and strong illustrations, this story could easily captivate some young readers, to the bemusement of their adult counterparts. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77657-156-7
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Gecko Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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