A strange story saved by silly art.
An odd story about a plucky reporter, an entrepreneurial rabbit and, yes, skiing squirrels stumbles a bit but doesn’t completely crash and burn.
Engaging cover art from Lemaitre highlights the book’s humorous, cartoonish flair as its strongest attribute. Pictures evoke movement and comic reactions to outlandish scenarios, positioning Lemaitre as an illustrator to watch. Ray’s text, however, falters in its rhyme and rhythm and in its unwieldy plot revelation. Though a story about squirrels, it’s impossible to put it in a nutshell, but here goes: Skiing squirrels descend on a town, upsetting the citizens and creating no small amount of chaos. Where are they coming from? Who’s given them skis? What to do? The aforementioned plucky reporter, Sally Sue Breeze, sets out to investigate, hoping to save them from the sad fate suggested by the evil Mr. Powers, who would like to obliterate the squirrels with a vacuumlike contraption. She discovers that a rabbit has been selling the squirrels Popsicle-stick skis and toothpick ski poles in exchange for all of their acorns, and Sally convinces him to return some of the food to the starving squirrels. She also manages to set up a ski area at the erstwhile ski and ski pole factory, while convincing the squirrels to ski only there and not through the town.
A strange story saved by silly art. (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-449-81081-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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