An excellent addition to the nature shelf.
Interrupting his walk on a sandy beach, a child runs after gulls playing catch with a starfish, intercepts their victim, and places it gently back into the water.
In previous titles in this series, young people have encountered birds first On Bird Hill (2016) and then On Duck Pond (2017). Here, readers visit a New England beach where a shorts-and–T-shirt–clad child with dark hair and sand-colored skin has been collecting “sticks and stones, / …shells and bleached small ends of bones.” The story is told in deftly constructed rhyming couplets whose pace seems to quicken with the chase, becoming transformed at the end. Veteran nature illustrator Marstall sets the story in Cape Cod (according to the cover copy), with accurate birds and believable scenery gently portrayed in watercolor. No reader will have difficulty recognizing herring gulls in real life; he shows them from every angle. The backmatter provides further description of other beach inhabitants seen in the illustrations: sanderlings and willets; sea stars; horseshoe crabs; hermit, Jonah, and fiddler crabs. There are also a few suggestions for protecting beaches by reducing the use of plastic, saving energy, and not letting dogs run after birds who might be nesting there.
An excellent addition to the nature shelf. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-943645-18-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Cornell Lab Publishing Group
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
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 stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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