The musicians live to play at the party, but some kids may feel a little sorry for those charismatic piranhas.
Musicians Mouse, Goat, and Bear can get to Cougar’s party only by traveling over a rope bridge that increasingly and perilously “sways and frays and slips and dips.”
As each animal makes its way across the bridge, Mouse strumming a ukulele, Goat beating a drum, and Bear playing a tuba, the rope frays further. They are not just afraid of a dunking: The Mighty Bitey Piranhas are waiting below. They sing: “We are the Mighty Bitey, / BEWARE our razor teeth! / snick, snack, click, clack, / zzzzzzzzzzz!” Will they get lucky and have a feast? The deeply colored rainforest illustrations with the characters’ heavy, black, sketchy lines were done digitally and look ready for animation. The lantern-jawed piranhas with their many teeth are fearsome and funny at the same time (one has a napkin and knife and fork at the ready). Just as only “a single twisting twine” is left holding the bridge together, a butterfly’s tiny weight upsets everything. The dangerous fish get ready for their lunch—but a surprise turn of events creates quite a different meal. With a little nod to “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” this original tale with its repetitive action and lively text will get kids involved in read-aloud sessions.
The musicians live to play at the party, but some kids may feel a little sorry for those charismatic piranhas. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-84886-361-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Maverick Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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