A shaggy dog story that’s both funny and disquieting.
“It’s not fair, Barney,” grouses Spencer to his brown-and-white mutt. “Susan is treated better than me. It’s like…it’s like she’s the human and I’m the dog!”
When Great-Aunt Alice visits Spencer’s family with her indulged Afghan hound, Susan, poor Spencer is aced out of a steak, the last piece of breakfast bacon, and a visit to the zoo, among other indignities. Boy and mutt take the royal creature to an off-leash park, where Barney teaches her how to eat garbage, roll in a mud puddle, play with other dogs, and run loose. Great-Aunt Alice is appalled at her muddy, tangled hound with garbage breath, and they leave in a huff so that both may return to their regular, disciplined lives. Will Susan revert to being a real dog after her brief time of true dogdom, or will she once again be a princess? Readers must decide, though Spencer thinks he knows. Action is strongly portrayed in Arnaldo’s mixed-media drawings, which show personalities, activities, and characters—the dogs are especially well-done. (Spencer and his family are white.) The story is overextended, however, and it raises some questions. Children may wonder whether it’s meant to be humorous when Spencer is deprived of food and Susan of activity. The illustrations convey the humor and fun, while the anecdotes sometimes seem selfish and mean.
A shaggy dog story that’s both funny and disquieting. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77147-144-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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