It’s a cow’s life, until Cappuccina gets it in her head that town looks a lot more fun than her pasture, in this candied grass-is-greener tale. Cappuccina is a substantial Holstein who lives at Farmer Fiori’s farm. Her hayfield has a view to a hilltop town, where she imagines people having much merriment. Occasionally, she’d even like to be human. When a storm results in a break in her fence, she makes a dash for the bright lights. But when she tries to deck herself out as a human—Cappuccina’s idea of humanness is going shopping, which is perhaps the more subversive lesson in this story—she finds the shoes don’t fit her hooves, the hat won’t settle on her horns, and the dress won’t drape properly over her tail. A hairdresser comes to the rescue with a pretty bow tie for her afterpart, and then it dawns on Cappuccina: “She really was just perfect as herself.” She returns to her pasture, where Farmer Fiori remarks, “Your life is so peaceful. . . . Sometimes I wish I were a cow,” which sets things up for the sequel. A story of flouncy cuteness, both in the text (“ ‘I will get a pretty dress to wear.’ Tossing her head in a friendly way, she stepped over to the dressmaker’s”) and in the artwork, all tropical colors and enough enormous grins on each page to make your teeth ache. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55074-807-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
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
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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