Fans of these sweet squirrels will devour this highly a-peel-ing volume.
Four brown squirrels have an accidental adventure at an apple farm.
When wiry, glasses-wearing Gramps is accidentally transported to the Crunchy Acres Apple-Processing Plant due to a snafu at the farmers market, it’s up to triangular Norma, thimble-shaped Belly, and peanut-shaped Little Bee to save the day. The trio is nothing if not resourceful, recruiting a friendly pigeon and the unnamed donut-truck operator from series opener Donut Feed the Squirrels (2020) to find them information about the apple farm and hitching a ride on a school bus that is taking kids to a field trip there. Arriving at Crunchy Acres, they must dodge apple-corers and outsmart factory line workers to find Gramps. Once reunited, the quartet makes it safely out of the apple factory intact only to realize they have landed in a pie at a pie-eating contest! Luckily they are rescued by Helen, an Asian-presenting student from the field trip, and all is well. Song’s quiet illustration style is consistently engaging but never overstimulating, featuring a natural watercolor palette, soft lines, and plenty of white space. Human characters, all secondary or background, come in a range of racial presentations and body shapes.
Fans of these sweet squirrels will devour this highly a-peel-ing volume. (Graphic fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984895-85-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Random House Graphic
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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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