The dinosaurs may make this a minor storytime hit, but more and juicier twists on the song abound. E-I-E-I-Bleh.
Outsized new livestock drive the familiar farmyard sing-along residents into a tizzy.
Entirely a one-trick pony, this umpteenth “Old MacDonald” spinoff wedges dinosaurs into the barnyard and lyric with little visible effort to make them fit: “Old MacDino had a farm, E-I-E-I-O! / And on this farm he had a… / DIPLODOCUS! / (dih-PLOD-uh-kus) / E-I-E-I-O!” (or, at the end of the verse, “E-I-E-I-Argh!”). In the cartoon illustration, overalls-clad MacDino—white, wide-eyed, and open-mouthed—stands and rather superfluously points at a huge green dino that is chowing down on a pile of hay as cattle and poultry hang around watching. Likewise, a pterodactyl (TARE-uh-DACK-tul) zooms in with a “Swoosh! Swoosh! here, / and a Swoosh! Swoosh! there,” a stegosaurus stomps along and (literally) upsets the apple cart, and a smiling velociraptor charges a herd of smiling sheep as the (smiling) sheepdog heads in the opposite direction. Finally a purple T. Rex comes charging out of the gray (or pink or blue, depending on the picture) barn with a “Roar! Roar!” and prompts everyone to “E-I-E-I-RUN!”
The dinosaurs may make this a minor storytime hit, but more and juicier twists on the song abound. E-I-E-I-Bleh. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-063-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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