It’s a good thing ciao can mean hello—or goodbye.
Take a tour of Venice from a dog’s-eye view.
Meet Sandro, a small black and tan dog with perky ears and wide cartoon eyes. He and his gondolier owner, Nicola, wear matching blue-and-white striped tops, with a dashing straw hat for Nic and a red neckerchief for Sandro. Together, they spend their days on the canals of Venice, but today Sandro “ha[s] people to see, places to go!” and embarks on a secret mission that takes him, and readers with him, on an uneventful tour of the historic city. This confident little dog marches through small alleys, crosses bridges, and even boards a vaporetto (a Venetian water bus) to ensure everything is shipshape for—surprise!—Nic’s birthday party. Despite a hearty sprinkling of Italian phrases and Venice-specific terms (complete with a glossary at the back), the book really fails to convey the vibrancy of Venice, which, as a major global cultural center and tourist hot spot, is in reality constantly bustling with dense, diverse crowds conspicuously absent from the dull, static illustrations. Everyone depicted, named or otherwise, has one of two skin tones: unvaried peach for White people (including Nicola) or a cadaverous taupe for people of color. While Varni’s writing lovingly evokes this European capital, the visual accompaniment fails to do justice to this heart-stoppingly beautiful city. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s a good thing ciao can mean hello—or goodbye. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4390-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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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