Encore, encore for kid lit’s ap-peel-ing new primate.
Monkey + banana = recipe for delicious cake…or delicious comedy?
In this first installment of a new series, the answer comes in two courses. Balancing cooking and banana-eating, bipedal primate Mr. Monkey clumsily bakes his entry for the upcoming cake show. But the route to the show contains many obstacles—and some are hungry for Mr. Monkey’s precious prizewinner-to-be. Pratfall after pratfall, readers will laugh and wonder if the cake will make it to the competition in one piece. The simultaneously published companion title, Mr. Monkey Visits a School, follows the same vaudeville formula: Mr. Monkey masters a new juggling trick and shares it at a school but only after lengthy, treacherous travels. In both stories, the narrator interacts with Mr. Monkey and provides running commentary of his antics. Characters’ speech is smartly confined only to interjections—“ooh,” “oops,” “eek,” “yum,” etc.—that play off the narrator’s matter-of-fact delivery with expert comedic timing. Though without chapters to separate parts of the story, the text’s economy of language (fewer than 90 vocabulary words and their variants) and repetition provide ample support for emergent readers. The slapstick humor is driven by Mack’s bold and colorful cartoon illustrations. The humans in Mr. Monkey’s neighborhood are diverse in skin tone. The cast also notably includes a tattooed, bearded bicyclist.
Encore, encore for kid lit’s ap-peel-ing new primate. (Early reader. 4-8)Pub Date: July 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-0431-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader!
Fun with friends makes for a great day.
Norbit, a salmon-colored worm with a pink kerchief, joyfully greets the day and everyone he encounters. “Hello, friends! It’s time for fun with the sun! Let’s play!” He and his menagerie of forest pals—including the sun, who grows limbs and descends from the sky—exuberantly engage in various forms of physical activity such as jumping, going down a slide, spinning around, and watching the clouds go by. Young readers will readily relate, as these are games that most children are familiar with. As day turns to night, Norbit says farewell to Sun and welcomes Moon with an invitation to continue the fun. Watkins has created a vivid world of movement and merriment. Her illustrations feature bright bursts of color that match the energy of the text, with most sentences ending in an exclamation point. The author/illustrator incorporates many elements that make for an ideal early-reading experience (despite the use of a contraction or two): art free from clutter, text consisting of words with only one or two syllables, and repetition and recurring bits, such as a continued game of hide-and-seek with Sun. Inspired by never-before-seen sketches from the Dr. Seuss Collection archives at the University of California San Diego, this is the first title for Seuss Studios, a new imprint for original stories from “emerging authors and illustrators” who “honor Seuss’s hallmark spirit of creativity and imagination.”
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader! (author's note) (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593646212
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Seuss Studios
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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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