Levine continues her tradition of reworked fairy tales with strong heroines begun with Ella Enchanted (1999) in this delightful tale of a bright young girl who can stand up for herself and the sheep she guards. When Betsy turns eight, she proudly takes the Shepherd’s Oath, determined to be the best shepherd ever. Meanwhile, the last wolf on the mountain is hungry, lonely, and devising a plan to have sheep for his next meal. When Zimmo makes his appearance before Betsy and her flock, she blows her whistle and the farmers come running. But the crafty Zimmo has disappeared—part of his master plan. He repeats the show the next day—same deal. Sent back to Shepherd School and given one last chance, she packs her lunch and tends her flock. But there is Zimmo again, and this time he is charging right at them. Blowing her whistle fails to bring any farmers, so Betsy gets ready to hurl her lunch at the wolf, at which point he sits down and howls for food. Realizing that he is just hungry, the crafty heroine feeds him and he leaves the sheep alone. The sheep sum up one of the story’s morals quite nicely: unlike the original fairy tale, “People who cry wolf may be deceived and not deceivers.” Nash’s (The Bugliest Bug, not reviewed, etc.) personified sheep are a stitch—walking on two legs, posing for a dive into the Soakenwetz River, belaying down a cliff, and always commenting on the current state of the story. Especially funny are the endpapers, where readers can eavesdrop on the sheep’s conversations. A must-have. (Picture book. 4-10)
Pub Date: June 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-028763-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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
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