Certain to excite gushes—of hysterical laughter, that is—from lone readers and storytime audiences alike. (Poopture book....
Proving that there’s always something new at the zoo, a pile of luminescent poop leaves even the designated poo-scooper flabbergasted.
Unsurprisingly, scooping up a zoo’s worth of doodoo every day—“Flying bits of bat poo / ‘Goodness, whose is that?’ poo. / A smelly pile of panda poo / sitting on the sand. / And Monkey always threw it / just as fast as he could do it”—makes young zookeeper Bob McGrew an expert on excreta. But who left the glowing glop? Aliens? Amid free-range arrays of dot-eyed, animated animals looking on with interest, Grey scatters sprays of brown spots, dots, smears, nuggets, and lumps of goo…capped by an outsized yellow-green deposit (not, alas, printed with glow-in-the-dark ink) left by an escaped gourmand iguana in the wake of an unbridled cafe food–and–firefly swarm buffet. The arrival of Hector Glue, proprietor of Glue’s Amazing Poo Museum, to buy the fecal firework provides Smallman with the opportunity for a second rollicking, rhymed catalog of caca: “I have a pile of yeti poo / and some that’s like spaghetti poo, / a smoking pile of dragon poo,” etc. Rows of carefully labeled museum exhibits continue on the endpapers.
Certain to excite gushes—of hysterical laughter, that is—from lone readers and storytime audiences alike. (Poopture book. 4-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-58925-197-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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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
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
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