A droll episode, with any lesson or moral beyond, maybe, “try, try again” absent or well-buried.
Persistence pays off for an urban raccoon determined to upgrade his garbage-based diet.
Weary of scrounging “rotten junk” from rubbish bins and hearing that the animals in the nearby zoo get fresh food every day, Roscoe tries to sneak in: first disguised as a tortoise beneath a green umbrella, then as a penguin with a pointy ice cream cone for a beak. Unsurprisingly, neither silly disguise fools the surly zookeeper. Finally, at the monkeys’ invitation, he steals the zookeeper’s keys to join them in their cage—whereupon they leave him chowing down and scamper off to set all the animals free. Chaos ensues. Done in a retro style with flatly applied, low-contrast colors, the cartoon illustrations are well-stocked with active, comically expressive figures. The narrative’s poker-faced tone (“ ‘That’s not for pests like you!’ growled the zookeeper. He was not a good-tempered man”) adds a similarly antique flavor. The locale isn’t specified beyond “a park in the middle of a big city,” but some of the skyscrapers visible beyond the zoo’s low walls may look familiar to young New Yorkers. In any case, at day’s end Roscoe generously offers the last banana in the bucket to the frazzled zookeeper and saunters off with a belch.
A droll episode, with any lesson or moral beyond, maybe, “try, try again” absent or well-buried. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-909263-53-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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 light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
