Anyone who has ever been owned by a cat will relate to this search for the perfect pet. Three little piggies—Hamlet, Pygmalion, and Podge—are hankering for a dog. Each has its own idea what would be the best type of personality: calm and patient, bright and frisky, or warm and cuddly. Mr. Pinkerton at the pet shop suggests they take a dog home to try it out—kind of a spin around the block—and return it the next day for another until they discover their best fit. The mastiff turns out to be too big a presence. Baxter is too yippy, and the terrier is too intent on digging holes everywhere. No dog seems just right. They approach Mr. Pinkerton with a list of wants and don’t-wants: small, gentle, playful, clever, friendly—yes; digging, chewing, licking, howling, dribbling, barking—no. Mr. Pinkerton admits he’ll need the afternoon to give their demands sufficient pondering. When the pigs return, Mr. Pinkerton is waiting for them . . . with a cat. Voilà, the perfect pet, and none of those absurd dog antics to contend with. Dog lovers, of course, will take exception, but such will always be the case: with both camps, you will either be part of the solution or part of the problem, and Chataway neatly subverts the initial lust for a dog. Perhaps the most appealing of all are Hamlet, Pygmalion, and Podge, rendered as pleasingly stumpy little characters with exaggerated features. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-55337-178-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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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