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
For patient listeners, a fun visit to a mixed-up barnyard.
When a fierce wind descends on the barnyard, the animals hear some odd noises…and they’re coming from their own mouths.
The sudden wind unsettles all the animals on the farm just when they should be getting ready for sleep. Instead, they anxiously “cheep” and “cluck” and “oink” and “quack” and “moooo.” They shift nervously, pull together, and make all sorts of noises. All except Turtle, who tucks into his shell under an old log and sleeps. In the morning, though, the animals get a surprise. Pig says, “Cluck”; the Little Chicks say, “Neigh”; Horse crows, “Cock-a-doodle-doo.” How will they get their proper sounds back? Turtle has an idea, and he enjoys the process so much that he decides to open his mouth the next time the wind plays tricks at the farm: Perhaps he’ll catch a sound all his own. Chua’s cartoon barnyard is bright, and her animals, expressive, their faces and body language slightly anthropomorphized. The edges of the figures sometimes betray their digital origins. Though the tale is humorous and will give lots of opportunity for practicing animal sounds, the audience is hard to pin down, as the young children sure to enjoy mooing and clucking may not have the patience to sit through the somewhat lengthy text.
For patient listeners, a fun visit to a mixed-up barnyard. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8075-8735-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Caregivers eager to expose their children to fine art have better choices than this.
From “Apple” to “Zebra,” an alphabet of images drawn from museum paintings.
In an exhibition that recalls similar, if less parochial, ABCs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (My First ABC, 2009) and several other institutions, Hahn presents a Eurocentric selection of paintings or details to illustrate for each letter a common item or animal—all printed with reasonable clarity and captioned with identifying names, titles, and dates. She then proceeds to saddle each with an inane question (“What sounds do you think this cat is making?” “Where can you find ice?”) and a clumsily written couplet that unnecessarily repeats the artist’s name: “Flowers are plants that blossom and bloom. / Frédéric Bazille painted them filling up this room!” She also sometimes contradicts the visuals, claiming that the horses in a Franz Marc painting entitled “Two Horses, 1912” are ponies, apparently to populate the P page. Moreover, her “X” is an actual X-ray of a Jean-Honoré Fragonard, showing that the artist repainted his subject’s face…interesting but not quite in keeping with the familiar subjects chosen for the other letters.
Caregivers eager to expose their children to fine art have better choices than this. (Informational picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5107-4938-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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