A fun romp with an anthropomorphized swine will leave beginning readers “hog wild” at their accomplishments.
Boris, an ugly but somehow truly winsome warthog, is back for another outing.
Formatted like an early chapter book rather than in the typical, larger early-reader configuration, this effort is intended for a rather young audience, with just a sentence or two at most of fairly simple, large-print text per page and ample full-color, cartoonlike illustrations. Though he already has lots of pets, Boris is determined to get himself a Komodo dragon. Does it matter to him that these oversized lizards might not make good pets since they have sharp teeth and poisonous spit? Not at all. When his parents don’t provide the desired pet, he hatches a scheme to get the local zoo to bring theirs to his house for a vacation. Certain it must be coming, he invites his entire class to stop by to see it. When the zoo demurs, Boris has to think fast—and substitutes a tiny skink and a good story. For a warthog with only a handful of facial expressions, Boris conveys a lot of emotion with expressive body language. He encounters situations that readers will recognize and identify with, and they just possibly will laugh out loud at his creative solution.
A fun romp with an anthropomorphized swine will leave beginning readers “hog wild” at their accomplishments. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: June 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-48446-6
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Branches/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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