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BIG WOLF & LITTLE WOLF, SUCH A BEAUTIFUL ORANGE!

From the Big Wolf & Little Wolf series , Vol. 3

The furry soulmates who met, separated and reunited in Big Wolf & Little Wolf (2009) suffer another temporary parting. When Little Wolf chases after a luscious orange that Big Wolf throws a little too hard and then doesn’t come back, Big Wolf once again feels pangs of loneliness. He sets out to find his small blue companion—into a city that Tallec’s crowded, blocky, shadowed street scenes render particularly soulless, impersonal and, as darkness falls, scary. Big Wolf’s feelings are subtly cued but felt with uncommon sharpness: “Big Wolf went cold. He didn’t dare to think anything. Certainly not that Little Wolf wanted to leave him, or that he would never return, or any of the other strange and unbelievable things he might think.” Little Wolf, tubby and silent throughout, is an enigmatic figure, but the much larger Big Wolf is rendered with a nose, ears and body of sinuous, exaggerated length, and the changing curves and angles of his body language clearly capture the depth and intensity of his emotions. Despite a few disconnects between the text and the pictures, even younger readers will be caught up in Big Wolf’s odyssey and rejoice when he at last tracks down his errant buddy, and (after he gently tosses him the orange) they “lived happily together for a long, long time.” (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: April 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-59270-106-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books

Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011

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THE WONKY DONKEY

Hee haw.

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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

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KNIGHT OWL AND EARLY BIRD

From the Knight Owl series , Vol. 2

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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