The musicians live to play at the party, but some kids may feel a little sorry for those charismatic piranhas.
Musicians Mouse, Goat, and Bear can get to Cougar’s party only by traveling over a rope bridge that increasingly and perilously “sways and frays and slips and dips.”
As each animal makes its way across the bridge, Mouse strumming a ukulele, Goat beating a drum, and Bear playing a tuba, the rope frays further. They are not just afraid of a dunking: The Mighty Bitey Piranhas are waiting below. They sing: “We are the Mighty Bitey, / BEWARE our razor teeth! / snick, snack, click, clack, / zzzzzzzzzzz!” Will they get lucky and have a feast? The deeply colored rainforest illustrations with the characters’ heavy, black, sketchy lines were done digitally and look ready for animation. The lantern-jawed piranhas with their many teeth are fearsome and funny at the same time (one has a napkin and knife and fork at the ready). Just as only “a single twisting twine” is left holding the bridge together, a butterfly’s tiny weight upsets everything. The dangerous fish get ready for their lunch—but a surprise turn of events creates quite a different meal. With a little nod to “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” this original tale with its repetitive action and lively text will get kids involved in read-aloud sessions.
The musicians live to play at the party, but some kids may feel a little sorry for those charismatic piranhas. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-84886-361-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Maverick Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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