The tale has a random feel about it, but one might suppose that underpants of any gender are always amusing to the under-7...
Translated from the French, this tale based on the app Renaud le petit renard perhaps loses something in print.
Francis is a smartly dressed little fox who spends Saturdays with his father at Mr. Li’s Small Socks Laundromat. He likes getting away from his annoying little sister, Lola, but fears Mr. Li’s granddaughter, Lily Rain Boots, who is always playing tricks. He makes lists of things he likes about laundry day (mixing patterns and colors! Sock tossing!), but while he and his dad are out having frozen yogurt, Lily adds lots of extra detergent to their laundry. It makes a huge mess of bubbles and terrifies the laundry cat, whose name is Mouse. Calling for Mouse terrifies the buxom Madame Bernadette, who thinks it’s a real mouse. Lily guiltily cleans up the mess but not before playing one final trick, which involves the beribboned unmentionables of the zaftig Madame Bernadette. And that’s about it, but it takes over 90 pages to get there. The simple shapes in dusty pastels evoke a French or Québecois city in which animals walk upright and dress as nattily as the humans. Mr. Li and Lily are definitely Asian, and Madame Bernadette wears high heels and a heart-shaped neckline.
The tale has a random feel about it, but one might suppose that underpants of any gender are always amusing to the under-7 set. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-894786-40-9
Page Count: 92
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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
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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