A polished showing with spare but well-integrated animated effects and several silly twists.
In this simple interactive odyssey, a little robot cockroach learns to listen to his mum and to say “Please,” after flushing himself down the toilet.
Ignoring a parental warning as so many human children are wont to do (though likely not with the same consequences), Rex pulls the chain while he’s still sitting—and finds himself in a dingy alleyway. From there, a rude robot fly, an aggressive robot mosquito and other mechanical bugs send him sauntering on his way. Among other adventures preceding the final joyful reunion with his mother, he fixes a spider with a literal screw loose, pauses to play a chance-found electric guitar and, by asking politely, enjoys a quick ride on a saloon’s aptly named “Bronco Buck.” One or two flashing cues on each screen show where to tap to pull the chain, avoid the mosquito or otherwise move the action along. As jaunty music plays in the background, an optional narrator with a pleasant British accent reads the text in a measured way. Useful controls include a thumbnail index and separate volume-control sliders for the voice, the music and the humorous sound effects.
A polished showing with spare but well-integrated animated effects and several silly twists. (Requires iOS 6 and above.) (iPad storybook app. 5-7)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Software Results
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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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