Ideal for Winnie-the-Pooh fans, this clear, straightforward biography reveals the bear behind the tale.
A soldier’s pet becomes famous.
During a short stop on a train ride across Canada during World War I, veterinarian-turned-soldier Harry Colebourn buys an orphaned bear cub he sees at a station. He names her Winnipeg for his company’s hometown; it’s quickly shortened to Winnie. He and his fellow soldiers take her along to England and keep her as a pet until the company leaves to fight in France. Harry finds her a home at the London Zoo, where she entertains generations of children, including young Christopher Robin, who renames his bear after her. Though she mentions A.A. Milne’s book, Walker’s narrative focuses on the bear. Opening and closing spreads of black-and-white photographs attest to the story’s truth; the misty edges of Voss’ ink-and-watercolor illustrations, from vignettes to full-page spreads, suggest its place in history. Readers see the appealing bear clinging to Harry as a young cub, climbing all over him in a game of “hide-and-seek-biscuits,” looking at them apprehensively over Harry’s shoulder during the ride to the zoo, and, fully grown, being hugged and ridden by children. An author’s note expands on Harry’s story and adds some facts on black bears and Milne’s children’s books.
Ideal for Winnie-the-Pooh fans, this clear, straightforward biography reveals the bear behind the tale. (sources, websites) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9715-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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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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
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