Bursting with confidence, a young skater describes what it takes to be a champion (at least in her own mind) in this wobbly but amusing manifesto.
First, of course, there’s the waiting for spring, summer and fall to pass. Once the pond freezes, it’s time to whirl, twirl, spin (and take a few falls, but never mind) before an admiring crowd of birds and family members. Afterward, champions will also need hot chocolate, a hot bath and, at bedtime, warm blankets to snuggle beneath. Hurried along by a narrative that often runs to just a line or a few words per spread, the illustrations portray a rabbit family tending a garden, paddling lazily in the pond or gathering in a cozy tree-trunk home through the seasons. They then watch anxiously from the snowy sideline as their “champion” resolutely weaves, glides and crashes on the ice. Along with leaving her brushwork visible on heavily textured canvas, Wright uses a palette of harmonious pinks and browns to imbue each scene with an air of comfy domesticity. The rabbits, however, all look so alike that it’s often hard to pick out the narrator, and though the narrator is addressing readers or listeners, neither she nor anyone else ever looks up from their activities to make eye contact. A healthy if impersonal dose of self-affirmation delivered by a cast with long, fetching bunny ears. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59643-404-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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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