Originally published in 1989 and billed here as new and revised (though evidently not enough to update the copyright year), this somewhat tall Western yarn recounts the exploits of young Wilbur Little, a lime-juice-loving pig-herder who takes on a crooked gambler and then a set of rustlers with help from his ex-pugilist blue moose, Alvin. Though the rhyming tends toward pedestrian and the rhythm sometimes makes a break for freedom—“The moose, his name was Alvin, / A heavyweight boxer, they say, / Who knocked out everyone he fought, / And then called it a day.”—the relentlessly oddball plot and clean-lined, firmly tongue-in-cheek cartoon illustrations will carry young readers and listeners along to the final warning: “Don’t laugh out loud or point, my friend, / Just move on slow down south, / Or you’ll find you’re full of lime juice / With a moose punch in your mouth!” Sung in a frame story by a cowpoke named Whiskers, his snoozing companions at the end make their own, unvoiced comment. Yup, a real knee-slapper. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 10, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-375-84174-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2008
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look...
Winning actually isn’t everything, as jazz-happy Rooster learns when he goes up against the legendary likes of Mules Davis and Ella Finchgerald at the barnyard talent show.
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look good—particularly after his “ ‘Hen from Ipanema’ [makes] / the barnyard chickies swoon.”—but in the end the competition is just too stiff. No matter: A compliment from cool Mules and the conviction that he still has the world’s best band soon puts the strut back in his stride. Alexander’s versifying isn’t always in tune (“So, he went to see his cousin, / a pianist of great fame…”), and despite his moniker Rooster plays an electric bass in Bower’s canted country scenes. Children are unlikely to get most of the jokes liberally sprinkled through the text, of course, so the adults sharing it with them should be ready to consult the backmatter, which consists of closing notes on jazz’s instruments, history and best-known musicians.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58536-688-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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