A rather meandering story about a whimsical cat and her chocolate egg.
The cat has found an egg; now she must figure out how to hatch her kitten.
When the cat finds a yellow egg in her basket, she is convinced it’s going to produce a kitten. Her friend the dog is quite skeptical. After sitting on the egg for a while, the cat needs a break, so she tries to find a babysitter for it. In turn she asks the dog, the crow, the cuckoo, and the turtle to help her. However, no one is able to help her, and now, after being carried around in her mouth, the egg is damp and smells odd. When she takes it back to her house, the dog discovers that the egg is not a real egg but a chocolate Easter egg. The cat considers eating it, but the dog tells her chocolate is not good for her and instead kindly shares his dinner with her. Kastl’s illustrations are playful and soft, giving the pages an uncluttered feel. The spatial creativity on display allows readers to see the story from the animals’ perspectives. While Karthikeyan’s wry text develops its feline and canine characters well, the story misses an opportunity to explore the ways in which different animal babies are born or why some people use chocolate eggs on Easter.
A rather meandering story about a whimsical cat and her chocolate egg. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-8-19365-422-4
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Karadi Tales
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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BOOK REVIEW
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