Spiegelman (Maus, 1986, etc.) tries his hand at a picture book—it looks and smells like a book, but it earnestly (dare one say doggedly?) assures its readers that it's actually a puppy, transformed by an annoyed wizard after a series of mishaps. Offering in evidence a pop-up tail (``How many books have tails that wag?''), fuzzy orange endpapers, and an attached fabric leash, the poor mite promises to be a special pal to readers who believe: flealess, housebroken, and willing to tell its story any time. It's a winning conceit, with ingenuous tongue-in-cheek illustrations, though, like Lane Smith's Happy Hocky Family (1993), some will find that much of the humor is pitched over the heads of its target audience. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-027320-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Hee haw.
45
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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. 29, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The goose is all that’s serious here…and that not for long.
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Bet you can’t make this goose smile, no matter how hard you try.
TV personality Kimmel’s first foray into picture books presents a feathered grump with a scowl that is proof against any kind of foolery: Try putting a chicken on her head, dressing her as a moose, or even trucking in a snail pizza—this goose won’t crack. Breaking now and again into verse, he challenges readers to give it a try in a foil mirror: “Cluck like a chicken / moo like a cow / be doofy, be goofy / any way you know how”—and sure enough, eventually a grin bursts out to replace the grimace despite a multipage struggle to hold it in, and off prances the goose in a pair of (gender-bending) tighty whities. Yes, she’s become “a SILLY goose (thanks to you),” the narrator proclaims, and what’s more, “YOU are a silly kid.” A hand-lettered narrative in block printing big enough to take up most of the space accompanies thick-lined cartoon views of a goosey glare that dares readers to crank up the volume, and the last page turn reveals a final tweak that may add a few grown-up voices to the younger chorus of giggles.
The goose is all that’s serious here…and that not for long. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-70775-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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