The penguin in peril prevails in this fresh and funny English import.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that cats in possession of a penguin must be in want of fish.
In this sprightly author-illustrator debut, three hungry red cats are inspired by a movie about fish-hunting penguins to steal one from the zoo and put it to work for them. As the cat burglars bike through the city with the penguin in a box on their bicycle rack, “[t]he penguin began to sense that he was in peril.” As luck would have it, the brave bird breaks free and lands among a flock of nuns, blending right in with their black-and-white habits. The cats don’t spot the penguin on the subway escalator behind the bowler-hatted man or in the restaurant (he looks like the tuxedo-sporting waiters), and so he makes his way back to the zoo “[j]ust in time for a fishy feast!” Justice is served with the help of a little bird who tips off the police: The cat gang is sent to jail for a lifetime of gruel. Graphic shapes in pencil and bold gouache colors not only make for striking compositions, they suggest humor in the simplest of ways. Clever details abound, like the underground map of the penguin’s escape via subway and the animals’ image-only dialogue bubbles.
The penguin in peril prevails in this fresh and funny English import. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7159-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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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BOOK REVIEW
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