It’s a well-worn theme, and takes with less risky coping strategies abound, from Kevin Henkes’ Julius, the Baby of the World...
Young Simon is stunned to learn that his parents aren’t planning to send his new little brother back to the hospital.
Previously met tricking a friend in A Deal’s A Deal (2011) and turning a splinter into a sword in Super Bunny (2015), Simon indulges in further iffy behavior in this outing. The outrage that he feels at the prospect of having to share his home doesn’t survive a spell of nighttime thoughts that leave him terrified of a massive wolf attack. When his parents tell him to go back to bed, he plucks up his 3-day-old sibling on the way, announcing “I’m going to protect you, my teeny-weeny new baby.” The rationale is disingenuous but forgivable; less so, at least on this side of the Atlantic (the episode was originally published in France), is transplanting the infant from a secure basinet to an open bed sans parental permission or supervision. Big, rabbitlike ears aside, the white characters in Blake’s simply drawn and colored domestic scenes are human down even, in Simon’s mom’s case, to facial features.
It’s a well-worn theme, and takes with less risky coping strategies abound, from Kevin Henkes’ Julius, the Baby of the World (1991) on. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4255-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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