Meet an alphabet of classroom pets in Sierra’s (The Dancing Pig, 1999, etc.) collection of quirky, entertaining verses. There’s a moose who doubles as a coat rack, Claude the feline acrobat, and Polly the Parrot, who is sent to the principal for inappropriate language. A class of unflappable children and teachers eagerly adopts each animal. Saltzberg’s cartoon-like illustrations, done in pencil, watercolor, and color pencil, nicely complement the action. The animals and children interact in a variety of settings that include a science fair and several field trips. However, the illustrations do not convey personalities. Facial features vary only slightly and expressions of emotion do not vary at all. In each illustration all characters display the same bland smiles, frowns, or looks of mild surprise. Several of Sierra’s verses suffer from uneven meters that interfere with the flow of the poems, and such tortured rhymes as “carpenter/sharpener” and “not/caught.” There is much to like about this book, some very funny concepts, in fact, but there are other collections of animal poetry that are ultimately more satisfying. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-202033-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
A lackluster collection of verse enlivened by a few bright spots.
Poems on various topics by the actor/screenwriter and his kids.
In collaboration with his now-grown children—particularly daughter Erin, who adds gently humorous vignettes and spot art to each entry—Bob Odenkirk, best known for his roles in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, dishes up a poetic hodgepodge that is notably loose jointed in the meter and rhyme departments. The story also too often veers from child-friendly subjects (bedtime-delaying tactics, sympathy for a dog with the zoomies) to writerly whines (“The be-all and end-all of perfection in scribbling, / no matter and no mind to any critical quibbling”). Some of the less-than-compelling lines describe how a “plane ride is an irony / with a strange and wondrous duplicity.” A few gems are buried in the bunch, however, like the comforting words offered to a bedroom monster and a frightened invisible friend, not to mention an invitation from little Willy Whimble, who lives in a tuna can but has a heart as “big as can be. / Come inside, / stay for dinner. / I’ll roast us a pea!” They’re hard to find, though. Notwithstanding nods to Calef Brown, Shel Silverstein, and other gifted wordsmiths in the acknowledgments, the wordplay in general is as artificial as much of the writing: “I scratched, then I scrutched / and skrappled away, / scritching my itch with great / pan-a-ché…” Human figures are light-skinned throughout.
A lackluster collection of verse enlivened by a few bright spots. (Poetry. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780316438506
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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