A romp through zoo history presented with pizzazz.
For at least 4,400 years, people have collected and displayed animals for entertainment, education and enlightenment.
From the long-ago kingdom of Ur, where the ruler enjoyed roaring at his lions, to San Diego, Calif., home of a popular panda cub today, zoos have provided public and private amusement and instruction for thousands of years. Krull’s fast-paced survey offers a different animal collection on nearly every page. Date and place serve as headings; a paragraph of description follows. She’s found intriguing examples including a “Garden of Intelligence” in ancient China, an aviary-cum–dining hall in Rome, a particularly extensive holding belonging to Aztec emperor Moctezuma II and a present-day bird park in Bali, Indonesia. She mentions zoo conservation work and the move toward natural housing for the animals. The text is lively and often humorous. There’s the elephant who sprayed a 16th-century pope and 15 “very confused American buffalo” in Grand Central Terminal in New York. Hall’s watercolor-and-ink illustrations, familiar to readers of the New Yorker and other magazines for adults, work equally well for a child audience. His fluidly drawn animals have amusing, slightly goofy expressions, the people are remarkably varied, and the settings include recognizable elements from historical times and places. Varying from vignettes to double-page spreads, these images add greatly to the overall appeal.
A romp through zoo history presented with pizzazz. (sources) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-13571-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 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
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