The perfect preview of New York City for early childhood readers and travelers.
The canine Charlie Wags ventures to New York City for a fun-filled, urban adventure in Wells and Barclay’s picture book.
Charlie the dog loves to travel (“How does he get around, you ask? He’s got a trick, it’s true! He gives his tail a little wag and ends up someplace new”), and in this picture book he takes in New York City’s traditional sightseeing highlights. He visits the Central Park Zoo and One World Trade Center, and checks out a Broadway show and Times Square. Charlie also views the city from atop the Empire State Building, cruises around the Statue of Liberty, and enjoys New York–style culinary pleasures (pizza and hot dogs). After a long day, Charlie heads home for relaxation and slumber following an enjoyable urban exploration. The text’s simple rhyme scheme focuses attention on rhyme and sounds, which can enhance early literacy skills. Sjöström’s illustrations—which combine the soft color palette and feel of traditional watercolors—portray both the time of day and the story’s happenings (a map at the book’s beginning highlights all of the places Charlie will visit) in a clear and aesthetically pleasing manner. The lovely images are primed to ignite wanderlust in young readers and encourage a desire for pursuing new experiences; this is especially true of Charlie’s picture wall, where he adds his photographic mementos of all the places he visits.
The perfect preview of New York City for early childhood readers and travelers.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2025
ISBN: 9798990005006
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kendam Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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