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COLORS

One of four “Animagicals” imports (Music, On The Go, and Patterns), this stumbles along in the footsteps of Beatrice Schenck De Regniers’s It Does Not Say Meow (1972), illustrated by Paul Galdone, and the like, matching a dozen riddle rhymes aimed at readers just past primary level with animal answers partially concealed behind gatefolds. Each animal is tied to a color, most of which make sense once uncovered. But though Junakovic’s colorful, vigorously brushed figures look up from the tall page with an appealing range of expressions, for the most part the verbal clues are too vague (some don’t even rhyme with the clue), and the visible portions of the illustrations too amorphous, for children to take more than blind stabs at the solutions. Better color books abound—this one’s game is off. Inessential. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000

ISBN: 1-929766-04-1

Page Count: 32

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000

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THE WONKY DONKEY

Hee haw.

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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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THE TOAD

From the Disgusting Critters series

A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor

Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.

The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”

A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: July 5, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Tundra Books

Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016

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