This murine essential worker returns in three small stories packed full of charm.
Everyone’s favorite delivery mouse returns after his eponymous debut (2019) with tales as succinct as they are comforting. “The Radio Mystery Book” informs readers that Motor Mouse loves mysteries but doesn’t read them at bedtime because they keep him up at night. When a radio station starts playing an audiobook, a chapter a day, he discovers there’s more than one way to enjoy a good book. “Day of the Double-Decker” begins with tragedy (a motorcar in need of repairs) and quickly turns around when our hero finds that his public transportation system is “full of kindness.” Finally, “A Good Game of Croquet” shows what happens when peaceful intentions wreak havoc with Motor Mouse’s regular croquet game with his brother Valentino. Conveyed with Rylant’s customary charisma, the tone of these tales retains its light touch with familiar characters and safe, comfortable settings. The art takes great pleasure in the smallest details, such as Valentino, natty in straw hat and spectator shoes, or, in another scene, a keen example of what would happen if Andy Warhol had ever painted chickens.
As comforting as a hot cup of tea, a scone, or the view from a double-decker bus on a beautiful sunny day. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9128-0
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Hee haw.
11
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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. 29, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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