A clever take on the golden rule that will amuse children who like reading tongue twisters aloud.
A troupe of troublesome turkeys is transformed by two tenacious trainers in this alliterative debut for early readers.
Every year, the king of Yummy-Yummy Land looks forward to choosing the tenderest turkey at his turkey ranch for the annual Royal Feast. But as the story opens, he discovers that the turkeys are terribly ill-mannered and unkempt to boot. On the advice of his wise owl sidekick Sir Who, he decides to hire some trainers to whip the turkeys into shape. Specifically, he selects Tillie, a tender turkey with very polite manners and a large heart, and a donkey named Pokey, whom Tillie considers “a friend who is kind and treats [her] tenderly.” (Sir Who notes, “We all become the way we are treated!”) With the help of three other turkey trainers—Timothy Tuxedo, a penguin; Tippy-Toes TuTu, a flamingo; and Tennessee Tyler, a horse—Tillie and Pokey help the turkeys understand that the key to being tender is to always look, do and be one’s very best. After successfully training them, Pokey worries that Tillie and the turkeys have been invited not to eat dinner, but to be dinner. Thankfully, after some amusing high jinks, the tale has a happy ending. The story told here originally began as an ongoing puppet show that retired teacher Walker and her co-worker used to share with their students, and it reflects its origins in its larger-than-life, silly characters and episodic narration. The real fun is not in the story, nor even in its lesson that being loved helps people become better at showing love, but in the frequent alliterative, rhyming phrases sprinkled throughout the text. Independent young readers will enjoy the twisty sentences (“Pokey and Tillie tapped their toes as they watched the turkeys twirl to the tunes”) and repeated catchphrases (“ ‘Okey dokey!’said Pokey”). The cartoonlike illustrations have plenty of child appeal, but the amount of text per page may be best suited to confident, independent readers.
A clever take on the golden rule that will amuse children who like reading tongue twisters aloud.Pub Date: June 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1490843711
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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