A nice addition to the nature shelf.
Stick insects have tricks that make them highly successful creatures.
Designed for reading aloud, Bestor’s two-level text provides an overview of a walking stick’s life. A simple, circular narrative begins in winter, with eggs hidden under the snow, and goes through spring hatching, a summer of community leaf-eating and predator evasion, and autumn egg laying (with or without fertilization); it ends with winter and spring again. Onomatopoeic phrases such as "Munch. Munch," "Drop, plop. Drop," and the titular refrain are printed in extra-large display type. Child readers are sometimes addressed directly in smaller-print paragraphs on each spread. These describe more complex events and use more specific language than the primary text: the way ants hide the eggs, mistaking them for seeds; the exoskeletons these insects shed (molt) as they grow; feet designed for climbing; and defense mechanisms, including camouflage, quaking, autotomy—the loss and replacement of an appendage—and even parthenogenesis. Though walking sticks are sold as exotic pets, the author helpfully suggests admiring them in the natural world instead. The stylish, probably computer-generated art resembles work done with cut paper; stylized images of the insects, the branches, leaves, berries, and flowers around them, and the ground below are set on a white background for each spread. Elements from these images make up the endpapers.
A nice addition to the nature shelf. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-58536-943-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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
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