After garnering a well-deserved Geisel Honor medal for their first adventure, Kate and her wiseacre talking horse Cocoa kick up their heels and hooves in another satisfying romp. In the first of four funny chapters, Kate talks Cocoa out of wanting cowboy boots and into “lucky” new horseshoes. The pair cooperates—mostly—to rescue a lost calf and hone Kate’s roping skills, partnering through thick and thin (not to mention wet and dry). Silverman’s crisp, lively dialogue and well-chosen action words (“nuzzled,” “twirled,” “pranced”) result in that rarity among easy readers: a flowing text that functions as well as a read-aloud as it does a reader. Lewin, who knows her way around a barnyard, uses her signature, economical, bold black line to define and enliven the bright watercolors. She deftly captures the many moods of Cocoa, who’s at turns mischievous, willful and affectionate. Both girls and boys will enjoy this fresh new series, another winner in the publisher’s stable of excellent books for emergent readers. (Easy reader. 5-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-15-202125-6
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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