Some riders look for the perfect horse. Bramble is looking for the perfect rider. Fed up with circling the ring at her...
A bored lesson horse finds understanding.
Some riders look for the perfect horse. Bramble is looking for the perfect rider. Fed up with circling the ring at her lesson barn, with jumping and with insensitive children, Bramble begins a campaign of passive resistance until the stable owner Mrs. Blenkinsop (a hard name for beginning readers!) puts her up for sale. But Bramble doesn't like the first riders that try her, either: One is too bossy, the other—horrors!—expects her to jump. Enter Maggie, who tries to figure out what Bramble wants. When Bramble goes too fast, Maggie apologizes—"My mistake. I didn't mean for you to go that fast"—and asks again. When Bramble shrinks from a snake in the yard, Maggie explains that it's really a water hose. And when Bramble doesn't want to be alone in her new stall, Maggie spends the night. Other than the improbable-but-cute ending, Haas' latest hits all the right notes, combining accurate horse information with the impossible longing of horse-crazy young girls. Friend's cartoonish watercolors, which appear on nearly every page of this upper-level early-reader, convey affection and sympathy for stubborn Bramble and sweet Maggie.Pub Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4955-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
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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