A very enjoyable read-aloud for would-be urban farmers and kids just needing a good laugh. (Picture book. 5-7)
Raising chickens has become a popular hobby in urban areas where some people have small backyards.
Winston and Sophie, younger brother and older sister, live in such a community. When their mother spots a sign offering five fowl of different breeds, they adopt chickens delightfully named Dawn, Divina, Daphne, Delilah, and Desirée. Sophie announces the news at show-and-tell, and Winston does the “Chicken Dance” on a crowded city bus, yelling “THE CHICKENS ARE COMING TOMORROW!” The siblings are ready to collect eggs, but there’s nary an egg in sight. The kids put on a play, provide music and stories, anything to “get them in the mood,” but nothing happens. They begin to interact with the chickens, learning their habits, a process depicted in eight circular vignettes on a double-page spread. When the children finally discover eggs, Sophie explains that different breeds lay eggs of varied colors and sizes. The brightly colored, amusingly detailed, naïve illustrations depict a white family, but there are diverse people at school, on the bus, on the street, and in their building. From “Sophie’s Chicken Chart” on the last page, readers can learn that Daphne, with her pouf of white feathers (Winston thinks it’s a hat) is a Polish breed chicken, actually from the Netherlands, and other facts. An author’s note provides resources on raising chickens.
A very enjoyable read-aloud for would-be urban farmers and kids just needing a good laugh. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-374-30097-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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 first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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