A friendship tale that soars.
Grounded personalities are curious about how to soar.
Willa the ostrich and Wade the penguin experiment with different means of achieving flight. Maybe they just need a running start? Or perhaps they need to be light on their feet. Some of their attempts end in a crash, but they always bounce back, undeterred. Sarhangpour depicts the pair with sparkles in their eyes and hearts fluttering around them—it’s evident they’re set on attaining their goal. After a day of attempts, they pause to reflect on what they’ve managed to accomplish: They had fun and helped each other. (Wade, a seasoned swimmer, gave Willa a lesson on how to float, while Willa gave an exhausted Wade a ride as they headed to the top of a cliff.) By the book’s conclusion, whether Willa and Wade will ever truly fly remains unclear, but they’ll definitely keep trying and learning together. Each page of this graphic novel contains one or two panels; anything the flightless friends say or do becomes the centerpiece of that page, sometimes against a blank background. The cartoonish art is simple and clear, and Willa and Wade’s friendship and optimistic spirit come through loudly: The two never assign blame for a failed idea and are always open to each other’s suggestions.
A friendship tale that soars. (Graphic early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781525308420
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
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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BOOK REVIEW
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A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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