A late bloomer the size of a mosquito but with a personality as big as all outdoors wings across the pond from Australia to explain how life surrounded by much larger sibs goes from being “no skip in the bush” to "fluttering skippity" thanks to the discovery of an outsize singing voice. The notably colloquial text (“My arrival was a real gobdropper. ‘Stone the blowies! What is it?’ ”) skitters through major changes in size and type style as Peka-Boo carries his (or maybe her) account from laborious hatching to a triumphant sonic epiphany. This, represented in Feely’s wildly scribbled illustrations with huge bursts and curls of color, is realized in a last-ditch effort to attract the attention of old Kapecki, a near–blind-and-deaf kookaburra. Kapecki’s observation that “you can’t make worm pie from a stack of bracken” may leave readers on this side of the lake scratching their heads, but Peka-Boo’s exuberance is as catching as that of the sibling-under-the-skin narrator in Kevin Sherry’s I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean! (2007). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-74175-541-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
Young readers will clamor to ride along.
Like an ocean-going “Lion and the Mouse,” a humpback whale and a snail “with an itchy foot” help each other out in this cheery travelogue.
Responding to a plaintive “Ride wanted around the world,” scrawled in slime on a coastal rock, whale picks up snail, then sails off to visit waters tropical and polar, stormy and serene before inadvertently beaching himself. Off hustles the snail, to spur a nearby community to action with another slimy message: “SAVE THE WHALE.” Donaldson’s rhyme, though not cumulative, sounds like “The house that Jack built”—“This is the tide coming into the bay, / And these are the villagers shouting, ‘HOORAY!’ / As the whale and the snail travel safely away. . . .” Looking in turn hopeful, delighted, anxious, awed, and determined, Scheffler’s snail, though tiny next to her gargantuan companion, steals the show in each picturesque seascape—and upon returning home, provides so enticing an account of her adventures that her fellow mollusks all climb on board the whale’s tail for a repeat voyage.
Young readers will clamor to ride along. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-8037-2922-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2004
Amusing, yes. Useful for reading practice, yes, but not necessarily guaranteed to make new readers the “read-i-est.” (Early...
Elephant and Piggie make an appearance to introduce the first in their new series, an egalitarian introduction to superlatives.
Each one of seven blades of talking grass—of a total of eight—discovers that it is superb at something: it’s tallest, curliest, silliest, and so forth. The humor aims to appeal to a broad spectrum. It is slightly disturbing that one being eaten by purple bugs is proud of being the crunchiest, but that will certainly appeal to a slice of the audience. The eighth blade of grass is grappling with a philosophical identity crisis; its name is Walt, a sly reference to Whitman's Leaves of Grass that will go right over the heads of beginning readers but may amuse astute parents or teachers. Tension builds with the approach of a lawn mower; the blades of grass lose their unique features when they are trimmed to equal heights. Mercifully, they are chopped off right above the eyes and can continue their silly banter. Departing from the image of a Whitman-esque free spirit, Walt now discovers he is the neatest. Lots of speech bubbles, repetition, and clear layout make this entry a useful addition to lessons on adjectives and superlatives while delivering a not-so-subtle message that everyone is good at something. Elephant and Piggie's final assertion that “this book is the FUNNIEST” doesn't necessarily make it so, however.
Amusing, yes. Useful for reading practice, yes, but not necessarily guaranteed to make new readers the “read-i-est.” (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2635-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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