Perfect for young sleuths with active imaginations who want to solve one more mystery before bedtime
A quiet mystery for bedtime that shines in its simplicity.
It’s spring-cleaning time, when everyone is hard at work. Little Fox, who loves mysteries and fancies himself a detective, polishes his Detecting Magnifying Glass as he dusts, so he’s ready when a bad dream tells him the moon has been devoured by monsters! Sure enough, when he opens his eyes, the moon is gone. Out he goes into the nighttime woods to search for the missing moon, joined by nocturnal friends Owl, Wolf, and Bear. When they go to invite diurnal Rabbit to join their expedition, they discover him in his house, up to his armpits in soap suds, busily washing the moon! A 90-degree turn shows the friends returning the moon to the sky in a vertical illustration to demonstrate its distance. Trukhan’s bold colors, attention to open space and object placement, and compelling use of geometric shapes evoke the bright village by day and the gently spooky woods by night in an appealing, retro graphic style. Inky, dark endpapers feature charmingly drawn white stars, setting the stage for the story. The understated gender bend in this picture book presents male characters busily cleaning, offering young children an alternative to traditional roles.
Perfect for young sleuths with active imaginations who want to solve one more mystery before bedtime . (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-55565-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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