Children will find much to laugh at in Skippyjon’s latest adventure, and although much of the wordplay will go over kids’...
That irrepressible, big-eared Siamese cat with an identity complex is back, this time desperate to go to school just like the dogs.
Luckily, Skippyjon Jones has an imagination to match his ears and a Spanish vocabulary to go with the “Chi-wa-la” he sees in the mirror. While his mother and sisters tidy up the house, he heads to his closet, backpack on, to board the school bus. His amigos, Los Chimichangos, are already aboard and ask for his help with the school bully. Before sorting him out, though, Skippito attends some classes—art, music, math, library and French. It’s while the gang is skipping obedience class that they finally run into the “wooly bull-ito.” A quick change transforms Skippyjon into El Skippito Friskito, and he leads the charge. Schachner is a genius when it comes to tongue-in-cheek humor, which she carries through both the rhyming verses scattered throughout the text and the acrylic, pen and ink artwork. The busy illustrations will amuse children and adults alike as they pore over the humorous details. Skippito’s Spanish-laden verses are characteristically broken; his fans won’t mind, but readers in search of authentic Latino representations should look elsewhere.
Children will find much to laugh at in Skippyjon’s latest adventure, and although much of the wordplay will go over kids’ heads, adults who are asked for repeated readings will appreciate it. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-525-42228-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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