This Scottish poet’s first picture book is a glorious hymn to the resplendent beauty and bounty of mother earth. Youngsters of every species ask their parents “who is the world for?,” to which each parent replies that the world belongs to them, their offspring. “Why, look around you / sings her mother [a whale]. The world / with all its deep roomy seas for you / to voyage through, all its million-kinded fish / that will part for you, all its rich seaweed, / its watery lights, its sea sounds / that speak so clearly to you— / the world is for you!” Pow captures the multifaceted beauty of the earth through the various animals’ responses. Each species treasures something different about their corner of the world: bears revel in the abundant caves and endless forests; lions relish the heat of the plains; while hippos savor the inky mud ponds. Pow’s prose illuminates the consanguinity of the earth’s inhabitants as the terrain moves from the sun-soaked African plains to the starlit sky of a darkened city. When the young boy questions his father about the world, the father’s response encompasses all the previous animals and habitats, definitively declaring that the world belongs to everyone and everything. Ingpen’s full-page pencil and watercolor illustrations are spectacular in their detail and realism. Deft strokes capture the furry majesty of a full-grown mother bear in one picture while minuscule fish glinting in the far-off depths convey the vastness of the seas in another. Combined, the contemplative text and graceful artwork make a heartfelt testimony on behalf of mother earth and her many children. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7636-1280-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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
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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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