A scraggly-looking bird brings two lonely creatures together on a moonlit beach in this offbeat tale.
The bird narrates in an affected mix of prose and verse—“It was then that I heard the brush shuffle and saw the dust fumble. I smelled large teeth and felt a slight rumble! Was it a lion? Oh yes! Oh yes! Now I see.” With an optional audio, the tattered-looking avian describes persuading Mowly the lion and Khody the whale to meet after listening separately to their rhymed whining. In gloomy, distorted illustrations that resemble Mervyn Peake’s art (Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor, 2001, the Gormenghast trilogy, etc.), both animals, rendered with wildly exaggerated proportions, radiate misery even during the climactic wordless pirouette that demonstrates the titular proposition. Their arranged tryst is likely to be less interesting to younger audiences than a resettable side game in which the author places 30 smaller animals in various scenes to be tapped and “collected” to open a hidden coloring page. Most scenes also feature minor animations and sound effects.
The strangeness of the art and writing may draw a few readers. (iPad storybook app. 5-7, adult)Pub Date: April 28, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Arcade Sunshine Media
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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Hee haw.
45
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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. 29, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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