Emma is a dog who lives with George the painter and his cat, and though she tries her best to please him, things sometimes go wrong. After sleeping on the new couch and upsetting the trash, she is sent outside, but when she commiserates with her canine neighbor, George takes issue with her barking. That’s when Emma picks up an issue of The Weekly Bone and emails Queenie, the advice columnist, about her troubles. Queenie first suggests showing George affection, but Emma’s efforts result in a ruined painting. Next Queenie mentions that Emma should keep an eye on things, but this leads to a mess when Emma tries to catch a mouse. Queenie’s last suggestion is that Emma find a job, and when she successfully lands a role in a play, she ends up on tour. Has George missed her? Emma hopes he has…. Readers will cheer for this well-intentioned heroine and applaud her eventual success. Christelow’s bright watercolors follow Emma’s adventures in comic panels and perfectly depict the satisfying ending. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-51003-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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