As Bill the Cat would say, “Ack.” (Picture book. 4-8)
An all-new Bill the Cat origin story helps relaunch Bloom County.
Eight years after Pete & Pickles (2008), Breathed’s last picture book, the cartoonist returns to well-trod material in what seems to be the hope of attracting the attention of parents who grew up with his comic strip. In search of a best friend, a white boy named Binkley instantly bonds with a kitty at the Pedigree Schmedigree Animal Shelter. Unfortunately, Bill is already bound for a life as a sled cat in the snowy North Pole. From there, he wanders the globe with little logic, making his mark on the megafauna of the savanna, cat worshippers, and earthling-abducting extraterrestrials, until he is finally delivered to his waiting boy. The scene periodically shifts to a lonely Binkley and Opus the penguin. Filled with copious visual gags and an all-white cast (even, apparently, the cat worshippers that build like the Egyptians and dress in stereotypical Middle Eastern garb), the book is an extended ode to Bloom County as a “Simpler Time, Kinder Place.” As a product, the book has a frantic energy that makes it a perfectly decent gift for those adults who have long missed the antics of Binkley, Opus, and the rest, but it will mean little and be of even less interest to actual child readers.
As Bill the Cat would say, “Ack.” (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-54662-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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