Strictly for reptile fans; Hutchins’ one-note tale and Holdcroft’s illustrations are both rough and unsubtle. Two appended...
Garter snakes use spelling skills to enlist lifesaving help. Who knew?
As the chickens peck nearby and the cat perches in a window, Rufus the farm dog is startled to see three snakes twisted into shapes that “seemed somehow familiar.” They are forming the word DOG. Another 28 snakes have spelled out, “Help please Snakes in trouble” (they can spell, but punctuation is harder). Uncertain, Rufus sets out on farmyard patrol. He herds four snakes spelling NEED out of the path of a speeding truck just in time and thinks that all is well—until he notices more snakes spelling out more words. This is a job for the farmer, who’s filling a hole. Rufus grabs the shovel and takes off across the field, the farmer in hot pursuit. The snakes have spelled out a new message—“SAVE OUR HOME”—with an arrow pointing the way. The farmer heads to his computer to look up snake facts, then sets to work. With Rufus watching, he redigs the hole, then puts a fence around it. In cold weather, snakes can avoid freezing to death by staying in the hole, he explains. The snakes spell a shoutout for Rufus, who came to their rescue—even though it’s not clear whether Rufus can read.
Strictly for reptile fans; Hutchins’ one-note tale and Holdcroft’s illustrations are both rough and unsubtle. Two appended pages of interesting snake facts are the highlights here. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: July 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-55451-472-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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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