Nonjudgmental encouragement for new readers—even if they flub up. (Early reader. 5-8)
Meet Flubby, a quintessential cat.
Flubby, a rotund gray-and white cat with stubby legs, seems unimpressed by his owner’s expectations of pet behavior. He won’t sing like Kim’s bird, catch like Sam’s dog, or jump like Jill’s frog. Flubby doesn’t even run when it rains. But when thunder pounds—“KA-BOOM”—cat and kid need each other. Morris limits her palette to muted shades of brown, blue, gray, and green with an occasional spot of orange. Short, declarative sentences follow a predictable pattern and complement the spare illustrations. Cartoon panels opposite full-page pictures move the simple story along. In one memorable double-page spread, the action—of the child throwing a ball while Flubby watches and then rolls over to sleep—moves readers’ eyes left to right across the spread in three stacked, horizontal panels. A full range of emotions, including happiness, frustration, boredom, concern, disappointment, fear, is conveyed with subtle changes in posture and eyes. The human characters are a multiracial mix. Kim presents Asian; Sam appears black; Jill seems white. Flubby’s owner is not gendered and has longish brown hair and brown skin. Series companion Flubby Will NOT Play with That! publishes simultaneously.
Nonjudgmental encouragement for new readers—even if they flub up. (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-524-78776-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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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