A sweet, comical choice for readers transitioning to chapter books.
A quirky pairing of a dragon and a tabby cat makes for some amusing adventures, told in three vignettes.
It all starts when a gray feline simply named Kitty is driven out from the barn where she lives by the unrelenting noise from her farm buddies. She journeys through a downtown lined with magical shops and traverses a forest and hills before scaling a tall mountain. Along the way, various fairies, frogs, and colorful furry giants call out warnings of a “silent dragon” that lives at the top of the mount. Once she summits the peak, an exhausted Kitty finds a warm cave and a friendly red dragon who readily accepts her companionship. In the second chapter, Kitty has come down with a cold, so Dragon springs into action. After some research, he makes a blanket, noodle soup, and some tea, all shown in a series of charming scenes as he nurses Kitty back to health. For the finale, Kitty is frustrated by the messy tendencies of Dragon. Desperate, she buys a “tidying-up” potion from the magic shop downtown. The silly results force Kitty to weigh what she really values. Spare, declarative text effectively narrates while Reid supplies lively backdrops that frequently span double-page spreads and incredibly cute characters; Dragon is nonverbal but still plenty expressive. With just a few short sentences per page, this fits neatly between high-level early readers and more-complex chapter books.
A sweet, comical choice for readers transitioning to chapter books. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5248-6100-1
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
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 light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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