by Judith Kerr & illustrated by Judith Kerr ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2002
Kerr, author of the beloved Mog books, uses soft, colored pencils and a Mother Goose–meets–The Ugly Duckling story to weave an uneven tale about a lonely goose in search of a mate. As the only goose on the town pond, Katerina wants the other goose—the one she sees reflected in the shiny side of a car—to “come out of the car” and be her friend. When Katerina stops a robbery at the bank, the townspeople reward her; the next day, the shiny car pulls up, the door opens, and Charlie, Katerina’s male counterpart, “comes out of the car.” The narrative stands on the interplay between text and picture; Kerr’s scrawling colored-pencil illustrations complement her text nicely, adding humor where it is lacking. The choice of colored pencils as a medium creates the look of a child’s drawings, simple and straightforward. Kerr’s dialogue is patchy, at times unoriginal, and yet sometimes wonderfully clever. When Katerina sees the robber carrying a bag, she thinks, “it was a goose-sized bag and there was something in it. There was a goose-sized thing in that goose-sized bag.” The logic here follows nicely, as Katerina pieces together the scene and comes to the realization that something is wrong. Yet many of Katerina’s actions seem forced, as if placed strategically to arrive at the final “wink” in the story—the “coming out of the car” play on words. While young and old audiences alike will get a kick out of this joke, the wordplay alone does not hold up as the backbone of the work. New readers will be able to “read” the pictures, without ever knowing a word. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-008254-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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by Doreen Cronin & illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2005
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)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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by Craig Smith ; illustrated by Katz Cowley ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2010
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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