A “merry,” pleasant, and uplifting seasonal offering.
A bird’s extraordinary holiday escapade, inspired by the real-life owl discovered in the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in 2020.
Merry, a northern saw-whet owl, has a favorite tree in the conifer forest: Hark, a Norway spruce. Merry stays warm in a hole in Hark’s trunk and listens to the tree’s stories. Merry also loves listening to Sebastian, a great gray owl, tell thrilling owl myths and longs to experience grand adventures, too. But when Hark is felled, lifted "onto a large, red shiny beast," and taken to a "new world" of "giant structures," Merry's whole world is uprooted. Alone in the big city, Merry has trouble hunting, but a kind brown-skinned woman takes Merry home and expertly cares for the owl; from the window, Merry watches Hark become more beautiful as her branches are decorated with colored lights. When Merry’s health is restored, the woman releases the owl back to the forest, and Merry realizes, “I had a grand adventure.” This gentle tale, narrated by Merry in first “person,” is a quiet, contemplative take on the usual holiday fare. The sweet illustrations, presenting wintry scenes and featuring some dramatic spreads, are mostly muted, with a palette composed largely of blue-grays, browns, ivory, black, and splashes of bright colors. Diminutive, saucer-eyed Merry is endearing and takes center stage throughout. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A “merry,” pleasant, and uplifting seasonal offering. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781643752389
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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