Hamlet the swine has quite the nose for food. He uses all the herbs and shrubs found in the Sniggery Woods to create the most wonderful dishes. When he receives a restaurant from his Uncle Alf, he transforms the kitchen into a cookery school with his friends’ earnest help. Interesting characters, from cousin Gloomy with her bubbling cauldron to King Heron with his wise counsel, populate the brief sentences. A warm authorial voice permeates the inviting narrative: “And here we must leave them for a short while, to see what they can make of that mess.” Descriptive phrases suit the soft watercolor scenes; vivid landscapes and soft vignettes decorate each page. Miniature details from Hamlet’s hearth and home convey the restful surroundings. Detailed maps depict the village’s countryside, providing a refined setting. As an ambitious cast of characters is introduced, more background would add spice to the three connected stories, but it’s so cozy and cheerful, readers will crave more than just this taste of Hamlet’s adventures anyway. (Fiction. 5-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8050-7701-8
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
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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