Ridiculous, participatory fun.
Readers are invited to locate a missing rodent, while encountering many other animals along the way.
The unseen narrator is distraught from the very start: “I LOST MY HAMSTER! My snuggable, huggable hamster!” But the hamster’s distinct characteristics (“fuzzy floof ears,” “nibble nubbin nose,” and “bitty brown tail”) should make it very easy to find the lost pet. Suddenly, two pink ears stick up from the edge of the page (one might even say “fuzzy flaps of floof”). The narrator joyously shouts, “MY HAMSTER!” But a page turn reveals that the ears belong to…a hippo. The narrator advises readers to back away slowly. Soon after, an extreme close-up of a nose (perhaps a “nubbin” one) has the narrator confidently shouting, “MY HAMSTER!” But instead, it belongs to…a naked mole rat. Once the joke is established, kids will have fun shouting out what animal might be next. Hartman’s narration is chatty and a bit over the top: “You’re probably starting to think I made this whole thing up. Maybe I don’t have a hamster. Maybe hamsters don’t even exist.” Pudgy, adorable animals (who look sweet even when they’re baring sharp teeth or glaring menacingly) add to the silliness.
Ridiculous, participatory fun. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798890033109
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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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