Long on visual appeal, but the connections between animal and human behavior are too tightly drawn.
Laying on the cute with a shovel, Eszterhas tracks an orangutan from birth to maturity in photos and anthropomorphic commentary.
Clambering over her distracted mother and often looking directly out at viewers, the hairy little imp shows plenty of personality as she suckles, learns to feed herself and gradually releases her tight hold on her parent’s long red hair. Though the big, clear photos are all taken in the wild, the author’s narrative frequently uses simile and metaphor to draw parallels with human behaviors with lines like “Mom is like an acrobat and uses her long arms to swing from branch to branch,” and “On the baby orangutan’s first birthday climbing lessons begin.” The young primate ultimately becomes independent (“she loves to hang out with friends”), but when she finally has a baby of her own, she will introduce it “to her mother—Grandma orangutan.” Eszterhas uses the same approach in the simultaneously publishing Sea Otter, but with less of the “awww, gee” factor since the mother and baby otters are so intertwined in the photos they’re hard to tell apart. Both volumes end with fact pages. Both also feature jacket flaps that partially cover stunning endpaper photographs.
Long on visual appeal, but the connections between animal and human behavior are too tightly drawn. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-84780-316-0
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
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 lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
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