The characters from Henry Bear’s Park (1976) return for a Christmas adventure that centers on a raffle to win a perfectly shaped Christmas tree. Henry wants to win the raffle; his friend Stanley the raccoon wants to buy a scraggly, inexpensive tree. Henry and Stanley spend all their funds (including their grocery money) on raffle tickets, and Henry actually holds the winning ticket, but he loses the prize tree because he’s off eating doughnuts at the time of the drawing. They end up with the scrawny tree after all, given to them because no one else wants it, and the little tree looks just fine when decorated. Momma Bear brings them a basket of goodies to eat, so their holiday celebration is a simple but happy one. McPhail’s charming illustrations in pen-and-ink with watercolor are filled with old-fashioned details and amusing expressions on the faces of the two best friends. The subtle message of the futility of chasing after a perfect Christmas tree has wider implications, contrasting well with the pair’s firm friendship and their quiet, meaningful holiday. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-82198-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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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