This, the umpteenth app based on the familiar tale, rises far above most of its brethren. In this cheery, abbreviated version, all three pigs survive—and so does the wolf, who falls into a pot of boiling water but then rockets back up the chimney and runs off howling. The brightly colored, flat, cartoon-style piglets and their unkempt pursuer (the latter driving a delivery van) float through a sunny woodland setting, paced by narrative lines and side comments written in British idiom. “I only want to come in for a chat,” wheedles the wolf; “I’m puffed,” puns a running piglet. Both dialogue and narrative themselves float over sprightly background music. Though both the animation and the transitions are sometimes stiff, each scene offers a healthy dose of hidden animals, figures that can be flipped or moved back and forth, variable dialogue, changeable angles of view and other features. These are activated by touches, swipes, tilting the tablet and even blowing on the screen (readers can help the wolf huff and puff). A cast of British children reads the basic narrative and the touch-activated dialogue with great expression. Opening with buttons to select a silent text, an interactive “Read and Play” option or a slightly less feature-rich rendition that advances on its own for group showings, this engaging and versatile app is equally suited to single or collective viewing. It amply shows that this old dog—er, pig—can still learn new tricks. (iPad storybook app. 5-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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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