Though the premise is clever and the illustrations intriguing, the story keeps the narrator at a distance from both the...
A child in a dress walking home from school narrates observations of neighborhood friends and their dogs before returning home, where a pet awaits.
The unnamed child, who appears to be about 10, walks home alone through a park and past town houses and shops. Comments on each owner-canine pair note that the pairs are usually similar in some way but sometimes are diametrical opposites. The narrator knows most of the people and their dogs by name, though there is no direct interaction with them. The setting appears to be a city in the 1920s, suggested in art deco elements and Jazz Age clothing styles. The watercolor, pencil, and digital illustrations use white backgrounds, placing on them stylized characters with a cubist influence in some of the faces. The narrator and some of the dog owners present white; other characters have brown skin, and two have faces in light blue. The story unfolds at a sedate pace without much excitement or movement, uplifted by a surprising touch of humor in the conclusion. The narrator’s own pet is not a dog as expected, but a “fat, lazy, grumpy old… / CAT!”
Though the premise is clever and the illustrations intriguing, the story keeps the narrator at a distance from both the other characters and readers, making it an emotionally disengaging one. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62414-689-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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
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