A wild ride with oddly assimilated educational substance.
It’s the day of the state test, and the students need help from Mighty Reader to fight their fears, calm their nerves, and remember their skills.
Lulu, a young anthropomorphic dog, wakes up in bed, upset because she’s overslept on the day of the state test. She stumbles out the door to find the world transformed. Scary beings embodying her fears surround her: an oversized pencil, a fire-breathing book, a sinister eye that glares from a triangle atop a stack of different books. Lulu cowers by a fire hydrant, hoping to be rescued before the fears can take her brain away. Mighty Reader, a dog superhero, shows up just in time, with a special T-shirt and reading technique. The fears are tamed, and the day is saved. Now, in an abrupt turn of events, Lulu wakes up from this nightmare ready to face the real test. At school, the teacher has calming stations prepared, but the students need Mighty Reader to get ready for the test. With a combination of panels and full-page illustrations, and more speech bubbles than narrative text, this book reads like a comic and feels like one too, with its fast dramatic action. The didactic lesson about reading techniques (take turns reading, “talk the pictures,” etc.) is given a full spread before the students are shown quietly taking the test with smiles on their faces—a mixed message that gives the ending an odd feeling. Despite the chaotic structure and awkward ending, this book will likely help some students acknowledge anxiety about tests, a first step to conquering it.
A wild ride with oddly assimilated educational substance. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: July 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4499-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 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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