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
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
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
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