Preschoolers familiar with the Caldecott Honor–winning Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type will recognize that cacophonous crew of barnyard animals in this spin-off “alphabetical adventure.” The story begins with an avalanche of alliteration: “Animals awake / beneath blue blankets. / Clickety-clack!” Once again, Farmer Brown’s cows are typing. Duck dashes off with their freshly typed note, but why? And what does the note say? As Duck zooms by goats grooming, hens helping, and inchworms inching, she grabs a mouse-inhabited, picnic basket–bearing red wagon. The mysterious note turns out to be a big X because “X marks the picnic spot.” (A rather central glitch: the bold X is clearly hand-drawn, and the cows were supposed to have typed this note. Ah, well.) The picnicking menagerie (inchworms included) eats a wagonload of watermelon and promptly falls asleep, a rather sudden ending perhaps designed to cue preschoolers to call it a day themselves. Lewin’s brush and watercolor illustrations are as loose and lively as ever, barely restrained by the A-to-Z format that juxtaposes a big lowercase letter with each visual vignette. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-689-87715-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
Genial but forgettable.
Even rough animals need affection.
Rhyming verses with bang-on scansion declare that animals who are considered noncuddly still need cuddles: “Despite their lumpy, bumpy hide, / toothy mouths stretched open wide, // just like me and just like you, / crocodiles need kisses too.” These porcupines, rattlesnakes, vultures, sharks, tigers, tarantulas, and gorillas also need squeezes, nuzzles, smooches, and tickles. The animals’ textually described dangerousness juxtaposes with the art, which shows gentle creatures: A rattlesnake’s “pointy fangs” are too rounded to puncture anything; tigers evoke mischievous toddlers; a porcupine’s “prickly spines, / sharpened quills raised up in lines,” far from being raised, actually angle downward as the critter peers meekly out from behind a tree. A shark fin is daunting, and a tarantula’s huge legs crawling out toward readers may startle them, but both sharks and tarantulas have affable smiles and harmless, curved bodies after each page turn reveals the whole creature. An ending twist changes the crocodile into a (brown-skinned) child in a crocodile suit, receiving hugs from a (lighter-skinned) adult. Dullaghan’s illustrations use acrylic paint texture well. However, they have a casual air and a lack of punch that, instead of creating meaningful juxtaposition with the verses, dilute the text’s hardiness and specificity. Sometimes the art leans toward the saccharine—rattlesnake bodies forming a heart—and Colby’s cloying ultimate moral that “children need affection too” isn’t particularly useful to child or adult readers.
Genial but forgettable. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-451-48007-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A clever conceit but a bland execution.
In this minimalist Australian import, readers are encouraged to guess animals based on select written and visual clues.
On each recto, readers see the hindquarters of an animal, and three simple clues ask them to guess what kind of animal they may belong to. “I have long furry ears and a small nose. / I live in a burrow in the ground. / I have a white fluffy tail. / I AM A….” The splashy watercolor rear legs and tail are ambiguous enough that they may have readers second-guessing the obvious answer. Turning the page, however, readers discover both the well-defined front half of the animal and the animal’s name: “RABBIT.” Canty uses stock 19th-century animal illustrations layered with watercolor enhancements, creating a somber yet surprising tone. Two tailless animals, a frog and human readers, are included in the roster, making the “tails” referenced in the title symbolic rather than literal. Two red herrings, the image of a mouse between the clues for and image of an elephant and (inexplicably) a squirrel leading to a giraffe, fall flat, with no other cues to young readers that they are jokes. The quirky illustrations, earthy colors, and lack of exhibited enthusiasm will make this book’s audience a niche one. There is no backmatter.
A clever conceit but a bland execution. (Informational picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0033-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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