The first in a planned series, this introduces readers to the BLUES, a bluebird band of five members. Their mission is to compose a new song for their first big concert on the lawn of the White House on the Fourth of July. To accomplish this, they are visiting the different regions of the United States and listening to the birdsongs in those areas. This clever conceit introduces young children to the joys of birdwatching. Each spread includes a page from one of the BLUES’ notebooks as well as a page from a field guide. Taken together, these give readers some interesting facts about each bird. Birding tips scattered throughout will help aspiring birdwatchers successfully begin their new hobby. Backmatter includes a map of the United States marked with each bird’s location and a list of sources for further information. Schroeder’s BLUES are full of personality, each with his/her own strengths, interests, likes and dislikes. She keeps them easy to identify with accessories in their favorite colors, and the cartoonish main characters stand out well from the more realistically portrayed regional birds and their habitats. A creative introduction to a popular hobby. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58469-124-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dawn Publications
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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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