bookshelf

'UH-OH!' SAID THE CROW

Name: 'UH-OH!' SAID THE CROW
Author: Joanne Oppenheim
ISBN: 0-553-09387-8

by Joanne Oppenheim ; illustrated by Chris L. Demarest ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1993

bookshelf

The best of Oppenheim's three new entries in the Bank Street Ready-to-Read series: on ``Level 2,'' a reader that creatively combines devices like animal voices and repetitions of words in amusingly varied phrases in a tale about animals frightened by mysterious thumps on their barn roof. ```What was that?' mewed Cat. `I don't know,' cawed Crow. `It's up there,' whinnied Mare.'' An owl hoots, the wind whistles, and the animals nervously imagine ghosts while Sheep baas, ```Go back to sleep' '' and they try vainly to get one of their number to investigate (`` `Not my Job!' grunted Hog''). The solution to the mystery isn't scary after all, but it's satisfyingly funny. Demarest's wide-eyed, freely rendered animal caricatures make the transition from spooky to comical with perfect aplomb. Also available: Row, Row, Row Your Boat (Level 1, ISBN: 0-553-09498- X), a survey of water craft with sometimes awkward variations on the well-known verse; The Christmas Witch (Level 3, ISBN: 0-553- 09392-4), a retelling of the Italian folktale about Befana. (Easy reader. 4-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-553-09387-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Bantam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1993

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
THE KNISH WAR ON RIVINGTON STREET
by Joanne Oppenheim ; illustrated by Jon Davis

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PRINCE'S BREAKFAST
by Joanne Oppenheim ; illustrated by Miriam Latimer

- BOOK REVIEW
DEAR MISS BREED
by Joanne Oppenheim

bookshelf

ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

bookshelf

Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

bookshelf

DIARY OF A SPIDER

by Doreen Cronin & illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2005

bookshelf

The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)