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A PIG, A FOX, AND A FOX

Three might just be a crowd for this series.

Can an old fox learn new tricks? He’ll sure try!

A fox doll joins Pig and Fox for the duo’s third outing, spelling double trouble for poor Pig. As with the two previous titles, A Pig, a Fox, and a Box (2015) and A Pig, a Fox, and Stinky Socks (2019), Fox plays tricks on his pal Pig that don’t quite go as planned. First, Fox places his new doll atop a high wall of blocks and calls out to Pig. Pig mistakes the fox doll for the real deal and rushes to rescue his friend from that precarious position, accidentally knocking down the wall and—“Oh no!”—burying Fox in the rubble. For the next trick, Fox knocks on Pig’s door and uses the doll as a decoy in an attempted surprise. The plan backfires when—“CRACK!”—the door swings to hit Fox hiding beside it: “Ouch.” Will Fox survive for a third trick or call it quits? Using fewer than 130 words, Fenske recycles his slapstick formula alongside repeated phrases to effectively entertain emerging readers. The dialogue-driven story helpfully uses color-coded speech bubbles to identify speakers. Colored backgrounds (some full, some partial) delineate most comics panels but lack outlines and are sometimes unclear. Though most will love the series’ familiar characters and cartoon violence, Pig’s oafish antics—and the repeated textual emphasis on his size—play into fat stereotypes. (This book was reviewed digitally with 7.6-by-10.2-inch double-page spreads viewed at 89% of actual size.)

Three might just be a crowd for this series. (Early reader. 5-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5247-9212-1

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020

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THE WONKY DONKEY

Hee haw.

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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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HOW TO CATCH A GARDEN FAIRY

A SPRINGTIME ADVENTURE

From the How To Catch… series

The premise is worn gossamer thin, and the joke stopped being funny, if it ever was, long ago.

A fairy tending their garden manages to survive a gaggle of young intruders.

In halting cadences typical of the long-running—and increasingly less amusing—How To Catch… series, the startled mite—never seen face-on in Elkerton’s candy-colored pictures and indeterminate of gender—wonders about the racially diverse interlopers: “Do they know that I can grant wishes? / Or that a new fairy is born when they giggle?” The visual action rather belies the sweetness of the verses, the palette, the bright flowers, and the multicolored resident zebras and unicorns, as after repeated, elaborately designed efforts to trap or even shoot (with a peashooter) the fairy come to naught, the laughing children are escorted out of the garden beneath a rising moon. The encounter ends on a (perhaps unconsciously) ominous note. “Hope they find their way back sometime,” the butterfly-winged narrator concludes. “And just maybe next time they’ll stay!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

The premise is worn gossamer thin, and the joke stopped being funny, if it ever was, long ago. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: March 28, 2023

ISBN: 9781728263205

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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