One thing’s for sure: This will be a big hit.
When a mysterious “big blue thing” appears, forest animals are baffled and afraid, so they try to make it leave.
Readers (or their parents) will know that the “thing” is a VW bus, but the animals don’t. Nevertheless, they sense that it poses danger. After much speculation about what it might be (an elephant? a dinosaur? a thing?), the wolves suggest frightening it away. They howl at it in the night, all to no avail. The bears are equally unsuccessful in spooking it with growls, and the wild boars’ huffs, puffs, pushes and shoves can’t budge it either. The smaller creatures (foxes, badgers and weasels) then try to dig around it and bury it—only to have it make a noise. This frightens everyone, and they run to seek the counsel of the Wise Owls, who suggest that the very smallest of creatures form a “BIG BUG FLYING SQUAD” with “a snake or two…for good measure” to swarm the big blue thing. Lo and behold, the plan works, and the animals can enjoy their pristine wilderness in peace—until another visitor arrives to deliver a space-age punch line. While the story never explains why the thing is unquestionably a threat, it revels in its telling, and detailed, playful, digital art succeeds in heightening humor.
One thing’s for sure: This will be a big hit. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7403-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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
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