“Be prepared” is the message in this sweet but nearly catatonic tale. Hillary, a kitten, has a date to attend a play in a neighboring city with her drama club. It is cold and snowing, so Hillary bundles up with layers of clothes and scarves and “Super-Duper Below-Zero Snow Walkers.” But once in the van, she begins to melt down, and she gets a gentle chiding from her pals about overdressing and not having dress-up clothes like they have. The snowstorm turns into a blizzard, the van skids off the road, and Hillary puts all her clothes back on to walk to a house they can see across the street. The lady of the house invites them in to spend the night as the roads are closing. So the drama club puts on a play about a snow rescue to entertain themselves and their host. The next day, spare clothes are brought out and the kids bundle into them and head home. “ ‘Next time I’ll bring my own winter gear,’ said Marcie on the way home.” The artwork is as mild as this strangely domesticated story about an event that should have been at least a little scary. The car skidding off the road, the storm, and the trudge through the snow—it is as though these excitements are packed in lint. And what about Ginny’s dad, the driver? Talk about a feckless boob: a story could be built on his irresponsibility alone. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-57505-420-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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