Good for browsing—with the potential for launching readers into further investigation.
Tackling the hows and whys of six kinds of animal movement, Jenkins and Page present 46 creatures in paper collages against crisp white backgrounds.
The format is clean and simple. A double-page spread introduces a type of movement and depicts a single animal. A cogent paragraph provides reasons for the adaptation. A common octopus is shown walking on the seafloor on two of its eight legs. Walking “doesn’t take a lot of energy, and the slow pace makes it easy to watch for food or danger.” The next spread presents six walkers—some of them surprising. The red-lipped batfish and sea pig also walk on the seafloor. A fishing spider can walk on water’s surface, and a red kangaroo uses its tail as “a fifth leg.” The narrative section about “flying” animals might more properly have been termed “gliding.” The text does distinguish between “true fliers” and “gliders”—animals that “sail through the air, but only for a limited distance.” However, only one of the section’s seven animals (the rhinoceros beetle) is capable of true flight, and common names like “flying snake,” “flying frog,” and “flying fish” further muddy the concept. Layered papers—cut, torn, and precisely chosen for color and texture—form creatures and occasional bits of habitat.
Good for browsing—with the potential for launching readers into further investigation. (glossary, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-63090-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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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
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BOOK REVIEW
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