In an equally beguiling companion to their award-winning Diary of a Wombat (2003), French and Whatley collaborate on an introduction to wombats and their behavior—as observed through the author’s 30+ years of having them as neighbors and caring for injured ones in New South Wales. After opening with her credentials (“I’ve also looked after orphaned baby wombats—cuddly, furry creatures that wreck your kitchen and take over your life”), she covers the animals’ ancestry, appearance (“hairy brown rocks with legs”), feeding habits, minds (such as they are), relations with humans and life cycle. Readers will come away understanding that they are wild animals despite their fondness for carrots and a good scratch on the back and that they can be enjoyable to have around so long as one doesn’t mind the occasional broken door or bite on the butt. They are also, as Whatley shows in frequent close-ups and vignettes, impossibly cute. This shorter version of a 2005 title published Down Under is as irresistible as its subject. (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-618-86864-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
Everything turns out right in this salubrious, good-natured account of everyday life in a one-room schoolhouse on an island in Maine where “the only cars were three old pickups.” Setting determines the life of nine-year-old Pru and the lives of the friends and family who surround her. She adores her teacher, Miss Sparling, and is bent on seeing that the woman does not—as have teachers in the past—leave the island after one year. In her efforts to put a good face on island living, Pru and a buddy raise money by recycling, planning to buy a Newfoundland for Miss Sparling. Every quiet episode is, by itself, smaller than a breadbox—finding a message in a bottle, making a new friend, participating in pet day at school—but they fit together neatly for a gratifying wishes-come-true ending. The amicable characters and genial tone harken back to simpler times, when afterschool activities meant discovering shells at the beach, and every sunset was an event. (Fiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88349-2
Page Count: 61
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Greed has no bounds for this bully goat and his insatiable black bag in Tompert’s tale, which is not so much cumulative as it is avaricious. On market day, Ole Goat is on the prowl; from anyone he encounters he demands their goods, or “I’ll pitch you down this mountain with a butt from my bony, bony head.” One after another, the wares belonging to owl, rabbit, and fox go into the evermore capacious black sack: “There’s always room for more. . . . I’ll never have enough,” howls Ole Goat. By the time the goat challenges a bear who has nothing but his hat to tender, the grasping creature trips over the bloat and winds up in a mud puddle. Tompert’s text offers a crisp backhand to the pox of greed, while Chwast’s artwork is highly demonstrative and engaging. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-89418-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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