A shaggy dog story with chickens. What’s not to like?
This graphic novel is precisely as obtuse as it should be.
The most famous—and possibly the dumbest—chicken joke of all time is, “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.” It follows a classic formula. It treats something ridiculously obvious as a huge surprise. This chicken story adopts the same structure. A hen lays an egg and can’t figure out why it’s suddenly vanished, even though one of the clues is a broken eggshell. She even brings in “the world’s #1 goat detective,” Billiam Van Hoof, who takes a plane to reach the other end of the farm. Some readers will lose patience once they realize the egg has simply hatched. Others will want to see how Dumais maintains the suspense. Arguably, she doesn’t. She just keeps adding more clues (a feather, teeny little footprints) until the pages run out. But the details along the way are hilariously confused: a signpost pointing to “unknown,” a map that’s accidentally drawn upside down. And the childlike illustrations are, for the most part, sweetly minimalist. One sequence consists of nothing but eyes glancing suspiciously at each other. But because every character is an extremely anthropomorphized animal, readers are treated to absurd touches like a cow wearing a black-and-white spotted dress. And many readers will enjoy feeling ahead of the game.
A shaggy dog story with chickens. What’s not to like? (Graphic mystery. 5-10)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77147-415-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
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
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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