While the slapstick may appeal to readers, sadly, this book is so confused and arbitrary, most of the humor falls flat.
A beleaguered giraffe tries to communicate that he isn’t a chair.
Poor Giraffe: on his first day in the jungle he’s seen as a chair by the other animals. Of course, giraffes aren’t actually found in jungles, and there’s little evidence of a jungle in the illustrations. While Giraffe does look a little like a chair, the fact that he has eyes and a mouth and nose and other features that distinguish the other animals from their seats makes it hard to understand why he is mistaken for a chair. But it’s all about the gag. Burach uses action-filled spreads to indicate a series of incidents that literally impede Giraffe’s speech, but when he is finally able to speak up for himself, he chooses instead to make a fake chair that looks like him. When that doesn’t work, he’s taken home by a dull-witted human who also uses him for a chair. Upon escaping, he is used as a chair by a lion waiting for dinner. When Giraffe finally decides to speak up and clear up the misunderstanding, he saves his own skin by scaring the lion, who thinks he’s a talking chair. The childlike drawings emphasize googly eyes, silly grins, a multitude of sound effects in emphatic display type, and lots of physical humor.
While the slapstick may appeal to readers, sadly, this book is so confused and arbitrary, most of the humor falls flat. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-236016-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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