Ten googly-eyed farm animals (cow, hen, goose, duck and others) all say just the right things (“Moo,” “cluck,” etc.) while the ladybug simply listens. She hears a plot to steal the prize cow outlined by two men who drive up in a big black van, so she devises a cunning one of her own to thwart them. Each of the animals participates in diverting the robbers from their carefully mapped path through the farm and foiling their plans with a little exercise in multilingualism—now the goose says “neigh,” and the cats say “oink.” Monks’s bright, clear and colorful full-page collage-and–line-drawing art delivers a sense of cheerful animation. Low on menace and high on clever silliness, this highly readable rhyming tale will have young listeners participating in the delivery of these unexpected variations on animal sounds and examining the last scene, with the thieves taken away by the constabulary and their footprints left behind to tell the tale of their failed scheme. Read-it-again fun. (Picture book. 2-6)
Pub Date: May 11, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9028-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
A warm, comforting tale with interesting facts appended.
How do baby animals sleep?
It must be time for bed, because someone special is describing how a number of different animals go to sleep. “If I were a giant whale, / I’d sing you songs—slow epic tales. / Fin to fin, down in the deep, / We’d drift together into sleep,” the narrator explains. Bound to appeal to young animal lovers, this brief survey of animal habits shows that chicks, squirrels, giraffes, bats, otters, spiders, and gorillas all have their own special sleep styles and habits, which are presented poetically in the text as well as in brief scientific detail at the book’s end. Digitally enhanced ink-and-pencil artwork shows young animals preparing for sleep in their own particular ways, while the gentle rhymes and rhythms of the text form a sort of lullaby. These baby animals are all depicted with their mothers, setting up the expectation that the adult human scene at the end is also a mother. At the story’s conclusion, observant listeners will see that the narrator-mother and her baby (both pale-skinned) have their own bedtime habits, and they will notice that the animals previously discussed are all present in the child’s nursery in some way, shape, or form. Though the book is not entirely striking or novel—both Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny come to mind, for a start—the concluding science notes help to distinguish it.
A warm, comforting tale with interesting facts appended. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-451-46958-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deterministic message detracts from the math.
For 10 flower friends, the grass is always greener…in the sky.
Ten Fantasia-like flowers with adorable faces and leaf arms/hands love being together and basking in the sun, but they also can’t help wanting to break free of their roots and fly when they see the fairies flitting about in the moonlight. One night, “Said the tiny blue one, / ‘Fairy up in the sky, / you see, I’m a flower, / but I want to fly.’ ” While the fairy is puzzled at the flower’s discontent, she grants its wish and transforms it into a butterfly. One by one the others join their mate in the sky as butterflies, each one’s color reflecting its flower origin. At daybreak, though, the new butterflies regret the transformation, and the understanding fairy changes them back again: “But big and tall, / or short and small, / being ourselves / is best of all!” Really? There isn’t even one flower that would really rather fly all the time? Throughout, McKellar emphasizes that there are always 10 in all, though some may be flowers and some butterflies at any given point. The endpapers reinforce ways to make 10 by showing 11 combinations, all in two rows of five, which may confuse children, rather than always keeping butterflies separate from flowers and allowing one row to be longer than the other. The bright colors, butterflies, flowers, and the fairy, who is a dark-skinned pixie with long black hair, seem calibrated to attract girly audiences.
A deterministic message detracts from the math. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-93382-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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