For clever cautionary tales with a lingering bite, try those by Jon Scieszka, James Marshall or Jon Klassen.
“The Gingerbread Boy” meets “The Mitten” in this tale of a self-centered (and doomed) protagonist squawking about an increasingly crowded setting.
The digital mixed-media sky is blue, and the clouds are puffy as a yellow bird descends to a deserted dry patch of ground in the pond. The peace is short-lived; a shadow blocks the sun, and a heron descends, followed by a frog and a turtle—each uttering the titular phrase, much to the vocal and graceless annoyance of the grumpy bird. When a fox begins to speak, readers may assume this is the end—or that he is about to echo the others—but the rude protagonist sends the animals scurrying with this interruption: “WELL, PARDON ME, BUT THIS IS MY PERCH, AND I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY!” As night falls, he achieves ultimate rest when the “land mass” rises, and the crocodile he’s been sitting on has the last “pardon”—a burp. This one-trick book is entertaining enough on the first read: The contrast between the warm and cool palettes as the action ascends and descends and the twist in the final scene will hold children’s interest. On rereadings, however, the soft focus, overly determined digital strokes and sarcastic patter offer little to sustain attention.
For clever cautionary tales with a lingering bite, try those by Jon Scieszka, James Marshall or Jon Klassen. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8997-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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
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