Amusing, colorful illustrations, interesting information, and a high-interest theme enliven a pedestrian text.
Repetitive verses count down from five to none as playful mermaids each chase after a different sea creature in the five named bodies that make up the global ocean.
The book starts: “Five little mermaids / Went swimming in the sea / to the Atlantic Ocean / To see what they could see. / Maria joined a school of fish / And swam away carefree. Whoosh! / Now there were….” Maria has curly brown hair and freckles and light skin. Makaiya has long brown hair and light brown skin and meets a turtle in the Indian Ocean. Ming, with straight black hair and what are meant to be Asian features, “high-fived a penguin” in the Southern Ocean. Marley, with bright curly red hair, a ruddy complexion, and big red glasses, follows a giant squid in the Pacific Ocean. Finally, Maya, with dark brown skin and dark hair in Afro puffs, swims after an orange lion’s mane jellyfish, a showy species surprisingly found in the Arctic Ocean. After a double-page spread that depicts an underwater castle, coral, sea anemones, fish, and other sea creatures, a page turn reveals all kinds of merfolk having a party to welcome the five after their travels. Coral-reef–bright illustrations are vivid and fanciful, with comical mermaids cavorting in the sea, and varied compositions help sustain interest, with the giant squid starring in one of the most dramatic spreads. Following the story, three spreads detail information about the folklore of merpeople, the oceans (with generalized location maps), and the five creatures highlighted and the depths to which they can swim. The music for the undistinguished verses is included, as is a CD with audio and video (not seen).
Amusing, colorful illustrations, interesting information, and a high-interest theme enliven a pedestrian text. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78285-831-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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 retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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