This caper is, ahem, shear fun for young readers.
Can Sheep Dog pull the wool over Sheep’s eyes? She isn’t so easily fleeced.
The farmyard pals, introduced in Sheep Dog and Sheep Sheep (2019), return. Sheep’s lush, woolly coat, which she loves to style, is too long; it falls over her eyes. Sheep Dog suggests a good shearing, but Sheep obstinately demurs. She opts for a ten-gallon hat but quickly abandons the oversized headgear (it doesn’t bring her joy). Sheep Dog raises the haircut idea again, but this time, Sheep has abandoned her friend, preferring to hide from him in a bush. She admits she’s not ready to part with her wool. However, when a duckling (“a water chicken,” as Sheep calls it) points out that her fleece will grow back, Sheep can’t wait to be shorn. It turns out she loves her shorter coif, but when she tells Sheep Dog it’s now his turn for a trim, guess who’s not so keen to seize the scissors? This is a lively, humorous romp, and readers who are less than thrilled to submit to haircuts themselves will relate. The supportive relationship between the friends is sweet and charming, and the fine-lined cartoon illustrations are comical and very expressive. Kids will appreciate Sheep’s funny antics and dialogue. Occasionally, both characters’ speech is set in large capital letters for dramatic emphasis, and onomatopoeic words are used to good effect.
This caper is, ahem, shear fun for young readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-267739-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 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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BOOK REVIEW
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