Financial planning never looked so good.
In Bunnyland, money matters get an early start.
McLeod’s Moneybunny series aims to teach young readers “a few simple facts about money.” In this volume, the focus is on making choices about what to buy. Sonny, the young bunny protagonist, wants to buy everything, but he only gets 3 carrots a week as an allowance. (In keeping with the conventions of currency, McLeod uses numerals instead of spelling numbers out.) Sonny’s mom, who dispenses wisdom while raking up a Technicolor pile of leaves, tells Sonny he is going to have to make choices because different things cost different amounts of carrots. That toy rocket costs 2 carrots, and the pogo stick costs 3 carrots, while the bouncy castle costs 100 (represented in a double-page spread of 100 carrots, arrayed in five rows of 20). (“That’s RIDICULOUS!” cries Sonny.) His mom suggests he give it some thought, to which Sonny blurts the universal credo: “I don’t want to THINK! I want to SPEND!” Good thing Sonny hasn’t got a carrot credit card. So Sonny gets to thinking how to spend his carrots, and a supercritical lesson is learned: consider how and what you spend your money on. (Saving was tackled in Earn It, 2017.) The lesson goes down smoothly because it presents options for ways to satisfy the urge to spend—it also helps that Sonny is cute as a you-know-what.
Financial planning never looked so good. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-54446-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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
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