What a wag!
A very good, very smart dog explains how readers can be their best doggy selves.
Chip, the protagonist of Don’t Eat Bees (2022), is back with some more lessons. First and foremost? “Don’t trust cats!” It doesn’t matter if they’re fluffy or stripy, big or small. But our hero assures us that there are plenty of things we can trust—like one’s nose. Of course, our narrator may be a bit too trusting; Chip emphasizes that “Those birds and squirrels you try so hard to catch? You can trust them. They’re laughing with you, not at you.” (Readers may beg to differ.) Boldt’s views of a wide-eyed pooch with a massive, shiny nose enthusiastically rolling in muck, shredding mail as it drops through a slot, and bounding up to a porcupine and then a skunk in expectation of meeting new friends steal the show. But Petty gets in quite a few good zingers, too—punctuating a tally of “trustastic” things like the fire hydrant (“It’s always been there for you”) and Grandpa, who may cheat at cards but always has a doggy treat ready. Don’t trust the vacuum, though, advises the stubby-tailed sage, and ESPECIALLY don’t trust cats: “Nohow, no meow.” A sly-looking cat and an olive-skinned human family add comical background reactions to the hilariously mismatched maxims and misdeeds of this canine life coach.
What a wag! (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593706787
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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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A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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