Three children exploring the Amazon River forest between dawn and dusk encounter a wide variety of animals that describe their customary activities in rhyming couplets, each beginning with an appropriate verb. “ ‘Snooze,’ yawn the sloths, all ready to doze. / ‘We’ll nap in the trees as we cling by our toes.’ ” The text is set in a quirky but legible type against Wilson’s lively background illustrations, created with printed papers, printing ink and acrylic paints. Appropriately, the children (black, brown and white) are dwarfed by the scenery. These busy, colorful pictures emphasize the lush plant life, and the animals are easily identifiable. Following the poem, nine pages of endnotes include a roughly accurate map and description of the Amazon rainforest, three examples of indigenous peoples—the Matis, the Yanomami and the Ribereños (more properly a mixture of peoples)—conservation issues and short descriptions of the 14 animals mentioned. Brenda Z. Guiberson’s Rain, Rain, Rain Forest, illustrated by Steve Jenkins (2004), provides a more informative introduction, but this cheerful addition to Krebs’s travel series will be welcomed in storytimes. (Informational picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84686-331-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
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 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
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