An enjoyable but sometimes-awkward reinterpretation of a classic children’s song.
Pigs party with a whole host of animal friends on a carousel at the zoo in Welton’s picture book.
The zoo is home to any number of attractions, but today Peg the pig is riding the carousel with friends. Readers can sing their way through the story to the tune of “Wheels on the Bus” as many different kinds of animals join the fun. After the platform on the carousel goes round and round and the poles go up and down, the horses jump in alongside the monkeys and gorillas. The music lilts, the elephants dance, and a festive atmosphere pervades the story’s setting. While the pandas, flamingos, and goats are able to climb directly onto the merry-go-round, “the eagle on the carousel swoops and flies as the cheetahs and zebras chase alongside.” This fun reinterpretation of a classic children’s song is at the center of Welton’s picture book, which is the follow-up to her Choo! Choo! Choo! The Train at the Zoo (2024). Preschoolers may love this romp despite how wordy it can be when it comes to describing the workings of a carousel. Welton often crams what could be multiple stanzas into one, changing the ending of each verse rather than keeping the repetition readers may expect from the original tune. Joubert’s illustrations are eye-catching and colorful, focusing mostly on the carousel and leaving much of the zoo itself to the reader’s imagination.
An enjoyable but sometimes-awkward reinterpretation of a classic children’s song.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781964934235
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Blue Balloon Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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