A barrel—or, rather, a barn—of laughs.
A cow comedian seeks out a willing audience for her signature knock-knock joke.
While the other cows in the barn graze on hay for breakfast, Daisy—known to the others as Interrupting Cow—begins her routine. “Knock, knock,” she says. “Who’s there?” they reply. And so the back-and-forth goes until Interrupting Cow interrupts “Interrupting Cow wh—” with a loud “MOO!” She falls “onto the barn floor in helpless giggles” while the other cows run away. She follows them, but the cows ignore her and refuse to play. So Interrupting Cow gives up and visits the duck pond instead. She tells her joke from start to finish, falling “backward into the water with helpless laughter” when she reaches the punchline “MOO!” But when Interrupting Cow recovers, the ducks are gone. The same thing happens with the horses, the chickens, the pigs, the goats, and even the lone donkey. What gives? Her joke isn’t that bad, is it? Yolen’s sidesplitting early-reader series opener cleverly personifies the misunderstood subject of the classic joke. (Interrupting Cow and the Chicken Crossing the Road is due out in December 2020.) Dreidemy’s full-color illustrations add to the hilarity with expressive cartoon character designs. With a total vocabulary of fewer than 200 words—including lots of synonyms—and at most nine lines per page, the text stays accessible to emerging readers. The most difficult word, “interrupting,” is even spelled out phonetically. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-12-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
A barrel—or, rather, a barn—of laughs. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5424-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon Spotlight
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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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