In bright, heavily brushed painted illustrations, bright-green Veronica Sue poses in comfy dress along with other family...
A plump and (generally) cheery frog models sneezes and sighs, giggles, slumps, growls and other common bodily signals.
In bright, heavily brushed painted illustrations, bright-green Veronica Sue poses in comfy dress along with other family members in a variety of simply rendered indoor and outdoor settings. These paintings deftly incorporate select but well-placed small animations, sound effects and touch-activated balls, flies or other items. Two to four lines of rhymed comment on each manually advanced screen provide explanatory glosses for her sounds, expressions or gestures—“Her tummy says ‘GRRRRR’ when it’s ready to eat. / Her tastebuds say ‘YUM’ when they find something sweet.” Uncertain new readers can get a chirpy audio reading of that page alone by tapping a speaker icon in the corner. A house icon in another corner opens a strip of relatively large thumbnail images for quick backing and forthing. The app isn’t immune to crashes, and the text could use copy editing—Veronica Sue “let’s [sic] out a GASP” at one point, and “tastebuds” is usually two words. Moreover, children with a cognitive disability may have trouble picking up Veronica Sue’s relatively understated cues. Nevertheless, this introduction to nonverbal language is likely to spark both better self-awareness and further discussion.Pub Date: May 19, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: My Black Dog Books
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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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